AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

THE  LIFE  OF 
CARLETON  H.  PARKER 


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AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

THE  LIFE  OF 
CARLETON  H.  PARKER 


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AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

THE   LIFE  OF 
CARLETON   H.  PARKER 

By 

Cornelia  Stratton  Parker 


BOSTON 

THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  I919,  BY  THS  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  THK  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 

ALL  RIOHTS  RK8KRVKD 


First  Impression,  May,  1919 

Second  Impression,  August,  1919 

Third  Impression,  September,  1919 


The  poem  on  the  opposite  page  is  here 
reprinted  with  the  express  permission  of 
Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  publishers 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  Works. 


Tet,  O  stricken  hearty  remember,  O  remember. 
How  of  human  days  he  lived  the  better  part. 

April  came  to  bloom,  and  never  dim  December 
Breathed  its  killing  chill  upon  the  head  or  heart. 

Doomed  to  know  not  Winter,  only  Spring,  a  being 
Trod  the  flow ery  April  blithely  for  a  while. 

Took  his  fill  of  music,  joy  of  thought  and  seeing. 

Came  and  stayed  and  went,  nor  ever  ceased  to  smile. 

Came  and  stayed  and  went,  and  now  when  all  is  finished. 
You  alone  have  crossed  the  melancholy  stream. 

Yours  the  pang,  but  his,  O  his,  the  undiminished, 
Undecaying  gladness,  undeparted  dream. 

All  that  life  contains  of  torture,  toil,  and  treason. 
Shame,  dishonor,  death,  to  him  were  but  a  name. 

Here,  a  boy,  he  dwelt  through  all  the  singing  season 
And  ere  the  day  of  sorrow  departed  as  he  came. 


Written  for  our  three  children. 

Dedicated  to  all  those  kindred  souls ,,  friends  of 
Carl  Tarker  whether  they  knew  him  or  not^  who 
are  making  the  fight^  without  bitterness  but  with 
all  the  understandings  patience^  and  enthusiasm 
they  possess^  for  a  saner ^  kindlier ^  and  more  joyous 
world. 

And  to  those  especially  who  love  greatly  along 
the  way. 


PREFACE 

It  was  a  year  ago  to-day  that  Carl  Parker  died  —  March 
17,  1918.  His  fortieth  birthday  would  have  come  on 
March  31.  His  friends,  his  students,  were  free  to  pay 
their  tribute  to  him,  both  in  the  press  and  in  letters 
which  I  treasure.  I  alone  of  all,  —  I  who  knew  him  best 
and  loved  him  most,  —  had  no  way  to  give  some  outlet 
to  my  soul ;  could  see  no  chance  to  pay  my  tribute. 

One  and  another  have  written  of  what  was  and  will 
be  his  valuable  service  to  economic  thought  and  progress; 
of  the  effects  of  his  mediation  of  labor  disputes,  in  the 
Northwest  and  throughout  the  nation;  and  of  his  inesti- 
mable qualities  as  friend,  comrade,  and  teacher. 

"He  gave  as  a  Federal  mediator,"  —  so  runs  one  esti- 
mate of  him,  —  "all  his  unparalleled  knowledge  and 
understanding  of  labor  and  its  point  of  view.  That 
knowledge,  that  understanding  he  gained,  not  by  aca- 
demic investigation,  but  by  working  in  mines  and  woods, 
in  shops  and  on  farms.  He  had  the  trust  and  confidence 
of  both  sides  in  disputes  between  labor  and  capital;  his 
services  were  called  in  whenever  trouble  was  brewing. 
.  .  .  Thanks  to  him,  strikes  were  averted;  war- work  of 
the  most  vital  importance,  threatened  by  misunderstand- 
ings and  smouldering  discontent,  went  on." 

But  almost  every  one  who  has  written  for  publication 
has  told  of  but  one  side  of  him,  and  there  were  such  count- 
less sides.  Would  it  then  be  so  out  of  place  if  I,  his  wife, 
could  write  of  all  of  him,  even  to  the  manner  of  husband 
he  was? 


X  PREFACE 

I  have  hesitated  for  some  months  to  do  this.  He  had 
not  yet  made  so  truly  national  a  name,  perhaps,  as  to 
warrant  any  assumption  that  such  a  work  would  be  ac- 
ceptable. Many  of  his  close  friends  have  asked  me  to  do 
just  this,  however;  for  they  realize,  as  I  do  so  strongly, 
that  his  life  was  so  big,  so  full,  so  potential,  that,  even  as 
the  story  of  a  man,  it  would  be  worth  the  reading. 

And,  at  the  risk  of  sharing  intimacies  that  should  be 
kept  in  one's  heart  only,  I  long  to  have  the  world  know 
something  of  the  life  we  led  together. 

An  old  friend  wrote:  "Dear,  splendid  Carl,  the  very 
embodiment  of  life,  energized  and  joyful  to  a  degree  I 
have  never  known.  And  the  thought  of  the  separation  of 
you  two  makes  me  turn  cold.  .  .  .  The  world  can  never 
be  the  same  to  me  with  Carl  out  of  it.  I  loved  his  high 
spirit,  his  helpfulness,  his  humor,  his  adoration  of  you. 
Knowing  you  and  Carl,  and  seeing  your  life  together,  has 
been  one  of  the  most  perfect  things  in  my  life." 

An  Eastern  professor,  who  had  visited  at  our  home 
from  time  to  time  wrote:  "You  have  lost  one  of  the 
finest  husbands  I  have  ever  known.  Ever  since  I  have 
known  the  Parker  family,  I  have  considered  their  home 
life  as  ideal.  I  had  hoped  that  the  too  few  hours  I  spent 
in  your  home  might  be  multiplied  many  times  in  coming 
years.  ...  I  have  never  known  a  man  more  in  love  with 
a  woman  than  Carl  was  with  you." 

So  I  write  of  him  for  these  reasons:  because  I  must, 
to  ease  my  own  pent-up  feelings;  because  his  life  was  so 
well  worth  writing  about;  because  so  many  friends  have 
sent  word  to  me:  "Some  day,  when  you  have  the  time,  I 
hope  you  will  sit  down  and  write  me  about  Carl"  —  the 
newer  friends  asking  especially  about  his  earlier  years, 
the  older  friends  wishing  to  know  of  his  later  interests, 


PREFACE  xi 

and  especially  of  the  last  months,  and  of  —  what  I  have 
written  to  no  one  as  yet  —  his  death.  I  can  answer  them 
all  this  way. 

And,  lastly,  there  is  the  most  intimate  reason  of  all.  I 
want  our  children  to  know  about  their  father  —  not  just 
his  academic  worth,  his  public  career,  but  the  life  he  led 
from  day  to  day.  If  I  live  till  they  are  old  enough  to  un- 
derstand, I,  of  course,  can  tell  them.  If  not,  how  are  they 
to  know?  And  so,  in  the  last  instance,  this  is  a  document 
for  them. 

C.  S.  P. 

March  17,  1919 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

CHAPTER  I 

Such  hosts  of  memories  come  tumbling  in  on  me. 
More  than  fifteen  years  ago,  on  September  3,  1903,  I 
met  Carl  Parker.  He  had  just  returned  to  college,  two 
weeks  late  for  the  beginning  of  his  Senior  year.  There 
was  much  concern  among  his  friends,  for  he  had  gone 
on  a  two  months'  hunting-trip  into  the  wilds  of  Idaho, 
and  had  planned  to  return  in  time  for  college.  I  met 
him  his  first  afternoon  in  Berkeley.  He  was  on  the  top 
of  a  step-ladder,  helping  put  up  an  awning  for  our 
sorority  dance  that  evening,  uttering  his  proverbial 
joyous  banter  to  any  one  who  came  along,  be  it  the 
man  with  the  cakes,  the  sedate  house-mother,  fellow 
awning-hangers,  or  the  girls  busying  about. 

Thus  he  was  introduced  to  me  —  a  Freshman  of 
two  weeks.  He  called  down  gayly,  "How  do  you  do, 
young  lady?"  Within  a  week  we  were  fast  friends,  I 
looking  up  to  him  as  a  Freshman  would  to  a  Senior, 
and  a  Senior  seven  years  older  than  herself  at  that. 
Within  a  month  I  remember  deciding  that,  if  ever  I 
became  engaged,  I  would  tell  Carl  Parker  before  I  told 
any  one  else  on  earth! 

After  about  two  months,  he  called  one  evening  with 
his  pictures  of  Idaho.  Such  a  treat  as  my  mountain- 
loving  soul  did  have !  I  still  have  the  map  he  drew 
that  night,  with  the  trails  and  camping-places  marked. 


2  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

And  I  said,  innocence  itself,  "/*m  going  to  Idaho  on 
my  honeymoon!"  And  he  said,  "I'm  not  going  to 
marry  till  I  find  a  girl  who  wants  to  go  to  Idaho  on  her 
honeymoon!"  Then  we  both  laughed. 

But  the  deciding  event  in  his  eyes  was  when  we 
planned  our  first  long  walk  in  the  Berkeley  hills  for  a 
certain  Saturday,  November  22,  and  that  morning  it 
rained.  One  of  the  tenets  I  was  brought  up  on  by  my 
father  was  that  bad  weather  was  never  an  excuse  for 
postponing  anything;  so  I  took  it  for  granted  that  we 
would  start  on  our  walk  as  planned. 

Carl  telephoned  anon  and  said,  "Of  course  the 
walk  is  off." 

"But  why?"  I  asked. 

"The  rain!"  he  answered. 

"As  if  that  makes  any  difference!" 

At  which  he  gasped  a  little  and  said  all  right,  he  'd 
be  around  in  a  minute ;  which  he  was,  in  his  Idaho  out- 
fit, the  lunch  he  had  suggested  being  entirely  respon- 
sible for  bulging  one  pocket.  Off  we  started  in  the 
rain,  and  such  a  day  as  we  had!  We  climbed  Grizzly 
Peak,  —  only  we  did  not  know  it  for  the  fog  and  rain, 
—  and  just  over  the  summit,  in  the  shelter  of  a  very 
drippy  oak  tree,  we  sat  down  for  lunch.  A  fairly  sanc- 
tified expression  came  over  Carl's  face  as  he  drew 
forth  a  rather  damp  and  frayed-looking  paper-bag  — 
as  a  king  might  look  who  uncovered  the  chest  of  his 
most  precious  court  jewels  before  a  courtier  deemed 
worthy  of  that  honor.  And  before  my  puzzled  and 
somewhat  doubtful  eyes  he  spread  his  treasure  — 
jerked  bear-meat,  nothing  but  jerked  bear-meat.  I 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  3 

never  had  seen  jerked  anything,  let  alone  tasted  it.  I 
was  used  to  the  conventional  picnic  sandwiches  done 
up  in  waxed  paper,  plus  a  stuffed  egg,  fruit,  and  cake. 
I  was  ready  for  a  lunch  after  the  conservative  pattern, 
and  here  I  gazed  upon  a  mess  of  most  unappetizing- 
looking,  wrinkled,  shrunken,  jerked  bear-meat,  the 
rain  dropping  down  on  it  through  the  oak  tree. 

I  would  have  gasped  if  I  had  not  caught  the  look  of 
awe  and  reverence  on  Carl's  face  as  he  gazed  eagerly, 
and  with  what  respect,  on  his  offering.  I  merely  took  a 
hunk  of  what  was  supplied,  set  my  teeth  into  it,  and 
pulled.  It  was  salty,  very;  it  looked  queer,  tasted 
queer,  was  queer.  Yet  that  lunch !  We  walked  farther, 
sat  now  and  then  under  other  drippy  trees,  and  at  last 
decided  that  we  must  slide  home,  by  that  time  soaked 
to  the  skin,  and  I  minus  the  heel  to  one  shoe. 

I  had  just  got  myself  out  of  the  bath  and  into  dry 
clothes  when  the  telephone  rang.  It  was  Carl.  Could 
he  come  over  to  the  house  and  spend  the  rest  of  the 
afternoon?  It  was  then  about  four- thirty.  He  came, 
and  from  then  on  things  were  decidedly  —  different. 

How  I  should  love  to  go  into  the  details  of  that 
Freshman  year  of  mine !  I  am  happier  right  now  writ- 
ing about  it  than  I  have  been  in  six  months.  I  shall 
not  go  into  detail  —  only  to  say  that  the  night  of  the 
Junior  Prom  of  my  Freshman  year  Carl  Parker  asked 
me  to  marry  him,  and  two  days  later,  up  again  in  our 
hills,  I  said  that  I  would.  To  think  of  that  now  —  to 
think  of  waiting  two  whole  days  to  decide  whether  I 
would  marry  Carl  Parker  or  not!!  And  for  fourteen 
years  from  the  day  I  met  him,  there  was  never  one 


4  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

small  moment  of  misunderstanding,  one  day  that  was 
not  happiness  —  except  when  we  were  parted.  Per- 
haps there  are  people  who  would  consider  it  stupid, 
boresome,  to  live  in  such  peace  as  that.  All  I  can  an- 
swer is  that  it  was  not  stupid,  it  was  not  boresome  — 
oh,  how  far  from  it!  In  fact,  in  those  early  days  we 
took  our  vow  that  the  one  thing  we  would  never  do 
was  to  let  the  world  get  commonplace  for  us ;  that  the 
time  should  never  come  when  we  would  not  be  eager 
for  the  start  of  each  new  day.  The  Kipling  poem  we 
loved  the  most,  for  it  was  the  spirit  of  both  of  us,  was 
**  The  Long  Trail."  You  know  the  last  of  it:  — 

The  Lord  knows  what  we  may  find,  dear  lass, 

And  the  Deuce  knows  what  we  may  do  — 

But  we're  back  once  more  on  the  old  trail,  our 

own  trail,  the  out  trail. 
We're  down,  hull  down,  on  the  Long  Trail —  the 

trail  that  is  always  new! 


CHAPTER  II 

After  we  decided  to  get  married,  and  that  as  soon  as 
ever  we  could, — I  being  a  Freshman  at  the  ripe  and 
mature  age  of,  as  mentioned,  just  eighteen  years,  he  a 
Senior,  with  no  particular  prospects,  not  even  sure 
as  yet  what  field  he  would  go  into,  —  we  began  dis- 
cussing what  we  might  do  and  where  we  might  go. 
Our  main  idea  was  to  get  as  far  away  from  everybody 
as  we  could,  and  live  the  very  fullest  life  we  could,  and 
at  last  we  decided  on  Persia.  Why  Persia?  I  cannot 
recall  the  steps  now  that  brought  us  to  that  conclu- 
sion. But  I  know  that  first  Christmas  I  sent  Carl  my 
picture  in  a  frilled  high-school  graduation  frock  and  a 
silk  Persian  flag  tucked  behind  it,  and  that  flag  re- 
mained always  the  symbol  for  us  that  we  would  never 
let  our  lives  get  stale,  never  lose  the  love  of  adventure, 
never  "settle  down,"  intellectually  at  any  rate. 

Can  you  see  my  father's  face  that  sunny  March 
day,  —  Charter  Day  it  was,  —  when  we  told  him  we 
were  engaged?  (My  father  being  the  conventional, 
traditional  sort  who  had  never  let  me  have  a  real 
"caller"  even,  lest  I  become  interested  in  boys  and 
think  of  matrimony  too  young !)  Carl  Parker  was  the 
first  male  person  who  was  ever  allowed  at  my  home  in 
the  evening.  He  came  seldom,  since  I  was  living  in 
Berkeley  most  of  the  time,  and  anyway,  we  much  pre- 
ferred prowling  all  over  our  end  of  creation,  servant- 
girl-and-policeman  fashion.  Also,  when  I  married, 


6  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

according  to  father  it  was  to  be  some  one,  preferably 
an  attorney  of  parts,  about  to  become  a  judge,  with  a 
large  bank  account.  Instead,  at  eighteen,  I  and  this 
almost-unknown-to-him  Senior  stood  before  him  and 
said,  "We  are  going  to  be  married,"  or  words  to  that 
general  effect.  And  —  here  is  where  I  want  you  to  think 
of  the  expression  on  my  conservative  father's  face. 

Fairly  early  in  the  conversation  he  found  breath  to 
say,  "And  what,  may  I  ask,  are  your  prospects?" 

"None,  just  at  present." 

"And  where,  may  I  ask,  are  you  planning  to  begin 
this  married  career  you  seem  to  contemplate?" 

"In  Persia." 

Can  you  see  my  father?  ^'Persia?'' 

"Yes,  Persia." 

"And  what,  for  goodness'  sake,  are  you  two  going 
to  do  in  Persia?'^ 

"We  don't  know  just  yet,  of  course,  but  we'll  find 
something." 

I  can  see  my  father's  point  of  view  now,  though  I 
am  not  sure  but  that  I  shall  prefer  a  son-in-law  for  our 
daughter  who  would  contemplate  absolute  uncer- 
tainty in  Persia  in  preference  to  an  assured  legal  pro- 
fession in  Oakland,  California.  It  was  two  years  before 
my  father  became  at  all  sympathetic,  and  that  condi- 
tion was  far  from  enthusiastic.  So  it  was  a  great  joy  to 
me  to  have  him  say,  a  few  months  before  his  death, 
"You  know,  Cornelia,  I  want  you  to  understand  that 
if  I  had  had  the  world  to  pick  from  I  'd  have  chosen 
Carl  Parker  for  your  husband.  Your  marriage  is  a  con- 
stant source  of  satisfaction  to  me." 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  7 

I  saw  Carl  Parker  lose  his  temper  once,  and  once 
only.  It  was  that  first  year  that  we  knew  each  other. 
Because  there  was  such  a  difference  between  his  age 
and  mine,  the  girls  in  my  sorority  house  refused  to  be- 
lieve there  could  be  anything  serious  about  our  going 
together  so  much,  and  took  great  pains  to  assure  me 
in  private  that  of  course  Carl  meant  nothing  by  his 
attentions,  —  to  which  I  agreed  volubly,  —  and  they 
scolded  him  in  private  because  it  would  spoil  a  Fresh- 
man to  have  a  Senior  so  attentive.  We  always  com- 
pared notes  later,  and  were  much  amused. 

But  words  were  one  thing,  actions  another.  Since 
there  could  be  nothing  serious  in  our  relationship, 
naturally  there  was  no  reason  why  we  should  be  left 
alone.  If  there  was  to  be  a  rally  or  a  concert,  the  Sen- 
ior sitting  at  the  head  of  the  dinner-table  would  ask, 
"  How  many  are  going  to-night  with  a  man?"  Hands. 
"How  many  of  the  girls  are  going  together?"  Hands. 
Then,  to  me,  "Are  you  going  with  Carl?"  A  faint 
"Yes."  "Then  we'll  all  go  along  with  you."  Carl  stood 
it  twice  —  twice  he  beheld  this  cavalcade  bear  away 
in  our  wake ;  then  he  gritted  his  teeth  and  announced, 
"Never  again!" 

The  next  college  occasion  was  a  rally  at  the  Greek 
Theatre.  Again  it  was  announced  at  the  table  that  all 
the  unescorted  ones  would  accompany. Carl  and  me. 
I  foresaw  trouble.  When  I  came  downstairs  later,  with 
my  hat  and  coat  on,  there  stood  Carl,  surrounded  by 
about  six  girls,  all  hastily  buttoning  their  gloves,  his 
sister,  who  knew  no  more  of  the  truth  about  Carl  and 
me  than  the  others,  being  one  of  them.  Never  had  I 


8  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

seen  such  a  look  on  Carl's  face,  and  I  never  did  again. 
His  feet  were  spread  apart,  his  jaw  was  set,  and  he 
was  glaring.  When  he  saw  me  he  said,  "Come  on!" 
and  we  dashed  for  the  door. 

Sister  Helen  flew  after  us.  "But  Carl  —  the  other 
girls!" 

Carl  stuck  his  head  around  the  corner  of  the  front 
door,  called  defiantly,  "Damn  the  other  girls!"  banged 
the  door  to,  and  we  fled.  Never  again  were  we  molested. 

Carl  finished  his  Senior  year,  and  a  full  year  it  Wcis 
for  him.  He  was  editor  of  the  "Pelican,"  the  Univer- 
sity funny  paper,  and  of  the  "  University  of  California 
Magazine,"  the  most  serious  publication  on  the  cam- 
pus outside  the  technical  journals;  he  made  every 
"honor"  organization  there  was  to  make  (except  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa) ;  he  and  a  fellow  student  wrote  the 
successful  Senior  Extravaganza;  he  was  a  reader  in 
economics,  and  graduated  with  honors.  And  he  saw 
me  every  single  day. 

I  feel  like  digressing  here  a  moment,  to  assail  that 
old  principle  —  which  my  father,  along  with  count- 
less others,  held  so  strongly  —  that  a  fellow  who  is 
really  worth  while  ought  to  know  by  his  Junior  year 
in  college  just  what  his  life-work  is  to  be.  A  few  with 
an  early  developed  special  aptitude  do,  but  very  few. 
Carl  entered  college  in  August,  1896,  in  Engineering; 
but  after  a  term  found  that  it  had  no  further  appeal 
for  him.  "But  a  fellow  ought  to  stick  to  a  thing, 
whether  he  likes  it  or  not!"  If  one  must  be  dogmatic, 
then  I  say,  "A  fellow  should  never  work  at  anything 
he  does  not  like."  One  of  the  things  in  our  case  which 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  9 

brought  such  constant  criticism  from  relatives  and 
friends  was  that  we  changed  around  so  much.  Thank 
God  we  did!  It  took  Carl  Parker  until  he  was  over 
thirty  before  he  found  just  the  work  he  loved  the 
most  and  in  which  his  soul  was  content  —  university 
work.  And  he  was  thirty-seven  before  he  found  just 
the  phase  of  economic  study  that  fired  him  to  his  full 
enthusiasm  —  his  loved  field  of  the  application  of 
psychology  to  economics.  And  some  one  would  have 
had  him  stick  to  engineering  because  he  started  in 
engineering ! 

He  hurt  his  knee  broad-jumping  in  his  Freshman 
year  at  college,  and  finally  had  to  leave,  going  to 
Phoenix,  Arizona,  and  then  back  to  the  Parker  ranch 
at  Vacaville  for  the  better  part  of  a  year.  The  family 
was  away  during  that  time,  and  Carl  ran  the  place 
alone.  He  returned  to  college  in  August,  1898,  this 
time  taking  up  mining.  After  a  year's  study  in  mining 
he  wanted  the  practical  side.  In  the  summer  of  1899 
he  worked  underground  in  the  Hidden  Treasure  Mine, 
Placer  county,  California.  In  1900  he  left  college 
again,  going  to  the  gold  and  copper  mines  of  Ross- 
land,  British  Columbia.  From  August,  1900,  to  May, 
1901,  he  worked  in  four  different  mines.  It  was  with 
considerable  feeling  of  pride  that  he  always  added, 
"I  got  to  be  machine  man  before  I  quit." 

It  was  at  that  time  that  he  became  a  member  of  the 
Western  Federation  of  Miners  —  an  historical  fact 
which  inimical  capitalists  later  endeavored  to  make 
use  of  from  time  to  time  to  do  him  harm.  How  I  loved 
to  listen  by  the  hour  to  the  stories  of  those  grilling 


10  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

days  —  up  at  four  in  the  pitch-dark  and  snow,  to 
crawl  to  his  job,  with  the  blessing  of  a  dear  old  Scotch 
landlady  and  a  "pastie"!  He  would  tell  our  sons  of 
tamping  in  the  sticks  of  dynamite,  till  their  eyes 
bulged.  The  hundreds  of  times  these  last  six  months 
I  've  wished  I  had  in  writing  the  stories  of  those  days 
—  of  all  his  days,  from  early  Vacaville  times  on! 
Sometimes  it  would  be  an  old  Vacaville  crony  who 
would  appear,  and  stories  would  fly  of  those  boy 
times  —  of  the  exploits  up  Putah  Creek  with  Pee  Wee 
Allen;  of  the  prayer-meeting  when  Carl  bet  he  could 
out-pray  the  minister's  son,  and  won;  of  the  tediously 
thought-out  assaults  upon  an  ancient  hired  man  on 
the  place,  that  would  fill  a  book  and  delight  the  heart 
of  Tom  Sawyer  himself;  and  how  his  mother  used  to 
sigh  and  add  to  it  all,  "If  only  he  had  ever  come  home 
on  time  to  his  meals!"  (And  he  has  one  son  just  like 
him.  Carl's  brothers  tell  me:  "Just  give  up  trying  to 
get  Jim  home  on  time.  Mamma  tried  every  scheme 
a  human  could  devise  to  make  Carl  prompt  for  his 
meals,  but  nothing  ever  had  the  slightest  effect.  Half 
an  hour  past  dinner-time  he  'd  still  be  five  miles  from 
home.") 

One  article  that  recently  appeared  in  a  New  York 
paper  began :  — 

"They  say  of  him  that  when  he  was  a  small  boy  he 
displayed  the  same  tendencies  that  later  on  made  him 
great  in  his  chosen  field.  His  family  possessed  a  dis- 
tinct tendency  toward  conformity  and  respectability, 
but  Carl  was  a  companion  of  every  'alley-bum'  in 
Vacaville.   His  respectable  friends  never  won  him 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  U 

away  from  his  insatiable  interest  in  the  under-dog. 
They  now  know  it  makes  valid  his  claim  to  achieve- 
ment." 

After  the  British  Columbia  mining  days,  he  took 
what  money  he  had  saved,  and  left  for  Idaho,  where 
he  was  to  meet  his  chum,  Hal  Bradley,  for  his  first 
Idaho  trip  —  a  dream  of  theirs  for  years.  The  Idaho 
stories  he  could  tell  —  oh,  why  can  I  not  remember 
them  word  for  word?  I  have  seen  him  hold  a  roomful 
of  students  in  Berlin  absolutely  spellbound  over  those 
adventures  —  with  a  bit  of  Parker  coloring,  to  be 
sure,  which  no  one  ever  objected  to.  I  have  seen  him 
with  a  group  of  staid  faculty  folk  sitting  breathless  at 
his  Clearwater  yams;  and  how  he  loved  to  tell  those 
tales!  Three  and  a  half  months  he  and  Hal  were  in 
—  hunting,  fishing,  jerking  meat,  trailing  after  lost 
horses,  having  his  dreams  of  Idaho  come  true.  (If 
our  sons  fail  to  have  those  dreams!) 

When  Hal  returned  to  college,  the  Wanderlust  was 
still  too  strong  in  Carl ;  so  he  stopped  off  in  Spokane, 
Washington,  penniless,  to  try  pot-luck.  There  were 
more  tales  to  delight  a  gathering.  In  Spokane  he  took 
a  hand  at  reporting,  claiming  to  be  a  person  of  large 
experience,  since  only  those  of  large  experience  were 
desired  by  the  editor  of  the  "Spokesman  Review." 
He  was  given  sport,  society,  and  the  tenderloin  to 
cover,  at  nine  dollars  a  week.  As  he  never  could  go 
anywhere  without  making  folks  love  him,  it  was  not 
long  before  he  had  his  cronies  among  the  "sports," 
kind  souls  "in  society  "  who  took  him  in,  and  at  least 
one  strong,  loyal  friend,  —  who  called  him  "Bub," 


11  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

and  gave  him  much  excellent  advice  that  he  often  used 
to  refer  to,  —  who  was  the  owner  of  the  biggest  gaqi- 
bling-joint  in  town.  (Spokane  was  wide  open  in  those 
days,  and  "some  town.") 

It  was  the  society  friends  who  seem  to  have  saved 
his  life,  for  nine  dollars  did  not  go  far,  even  then.  I 
have  heard  his  hostesses  tell  of  the  meal  he  could 
consume.  "But  I'd  been  saving  for  it  all  day,  with 
just  ten  cents  in  my  pocket."  I  met  a  pal  of  those  days 
who  used  to  save  Carl  considerable  of  his  nine  dollars 
by  "smooching"  his  wash  into  his  own  home  laundry. 

About  then  Carl's  older  brother,  Boyd,  who  was 
somewhat  fastidious,  ran  into  him  in  Spokane.  He 
tells  how  Carl  insisted  he  should  spend  the  night  at 
his  room  instead  of  going  to  a  hotel. 

"Is  it  far  from  here?" 

"Oh,  no!" 

So  they  started  out  with  Boyd's  suitcase,  and 
walked  and  walked  through  the  "darndest  part  of 
town  you  ever  saw."  Finally,  after  crossing  untold 
railroad  tracks  and  ducking  around  sheds  and  through 
alleys,  they  came  to  a  rooming-house  that  was  "a 
holy  fright."  "It's  all  right  inside,"  Carl  explained. 

When  they  reached  his  room,  there  was  one  not 
over-broad  bed  in  the  corner,  and  a  red  head  showing, 
snoring  contentedly. 

"Who's  that?"  the  brother  asked. 

"Oh,  a  fellow  I  picked  up  somewhere.'* 

"Where  am  I  to  sleep?" 

"Right  in  here  —  the  bed's  plenty  big  enough  for 
three!" 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  13 

And  Boyd  says,  though  it  was  2  a.m.  and  miles  from 
anywhere,  he  lit  out  of  there  as  fast  as  he  could  move ; 
and  he  adds,  "  I  don't  believe  he  even  knew  that  red- 
headed boy's  name!" 

The  reporting  went  rather  lamely  it  seemed,  how- 
ever. The  editor  said  that  it  read  amateurish,  and  he 
felt  he  would  have  to  make  a  change.  Carl  made  for 
some  files  where  all  the  daily  papers  were  kept,  and 
read  and  re-read  the  yellowest  of  the  yellow.  As  luck 
would  have  it,  that  very  night  a  big  fire  broke  out 
in  a  crowded  apartment  house.  It  was  not  in  Carl's 
"beat,"  but  he  decided  to  cover  it  anyhow.  Along 
with  the  firemen,  he  managed  to  get  up  on  the  roof;  he 
jumped  here,  he  flew  there,  demolishing  the  only  suit 
of  clothes  he  owned.  But  what  an  account  he  handed 
in!  The  editor  discarded  entirely  the  story  of  the 
reporter  sent  to  cover  the  fire,  ran  in  Carl's,  word  for 
word,  and  raised  him  to  twelve  dollars  a  week. 

But  just  as  the  crown  of  reportorial  success  was 
lighting  on  his  brow,  his  mother  made  it  plain  to  him 
that  she  preferred  to  have  him  return  to  college.  He 
bought  a  ticket  to  Vacaville,  —  it  was  just  about 
Christmas  time,  —  purchased  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a 
can  of  sardines,  and  with  thirty  cents  in  his  pocket, 
the  extent  of  his  worldly  wealth,  he  left  for  Califor- 
nia, traveling  in  a  day  coach  all  the  way.  I  remember 
his  story  of  how,  about  the  end  of  the  second  day  of 
bread  and  sardines,  he  cold-bloodedly  and  with  afore- 
thought cultivated  a  man  opposite  him,  who  looked 
as  if  he  could  afl:'ord  to  eat;  and  how  the  man 
"came  through"  and  asked  Carl  if  he  would  have 


14  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

dinner  with  him  in  the  diner.  To  hear  him  tell  what 
and  how  much  he  ordered,  and  of  the  expression  and 
depression  of  the  paying  host!  It  tided  him  over  until 
he  reached  home,  anyhow  —  never  mind  the  host. 

All  his  mining  experience,  plus  the  dark  side  of  life, 
as  contrasted  with  society  as  he  saw  them  both  in 
Spokane,  turned  his  interest  to  the  field  of  economics. 
And  when  he  entered  college  the  next  spring,  it  was  to 
"major"  in  that  subject. 

May  and  June,  1903,  he  worked  underground  in 
the  coal-mines  of  Nanaimo.  In  July  he  met  Nay 
Moran  in  Idaho  for  his  second  Idaho  camping- trip; 
and  it  was  on  his  return  from  this  outing  that  I  met 
him,  and  ate  his  jerked  meat  and  loved  him,  and  never 
stopped  doing  that  for  one  second. 


CHAPTER  III 

There  were  three  boys  in  the  Parker  family,  and  one 
girl.  Each  of  the  other  brothers  had  been  encouraged 
to  see  the  world,  and  in  his  turn  Carl  planned  four- 
teen months  in  Europe,  his  serious  objective  being,  on 
his  return,  to  act  as  Extension  Secretary  to  Professor 
Stephens  of  the  University  of  California,  who  was 
preparing  to  organize  Extension  work  for  the  first 
time  in  California.  Carl  was  to  study  the  English  Ex- 
tension system  and  also  prepare  for  some  Extension 
lecturing. 

By  that  time,  we  had  come  a  bit  to  our  senses,  and 
I  had  realized  that  since  there  was  no  money  anyhow 
to  marry  on,  and  since  I  was  so  young,  I  had  better 
stay  on  and  graduate  from  college.  Carl  could  have 
his  trip  to  Europe  and  get  an  option,  perhaps,  on  a 
tent  in  Persia.  A  friend  was  telling  me  recently  of 
running  into  Carl  on  the  street  just  before  he  left  for 
Europe  and  asking  him  what  he  was  planning  to  do 
for  the  future.  Carl  answered  with  a  twinkle,  "  I  don't 
know  but  what  there 's  room  for  an  energetic  up-and- 
coming  young  man  in  Asia  Minor." 

I  stopped  writing  here  to  read  through  Carl's  Euro- 
pean letters,  and  laid  aside  about  seven  I  wanted  to 
quote  from:  the  accounts  of  three  dinners  at  Sidney 
and  Beatrice  Webb's  in  London  —  what  knowing 
them  always  meant  to  him!  They,  perhaps,  have 
forgotten  him ;  but  meeting  the  Webbs  and  Graham 


i6  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Wallas  and  that  English  group  could  be  nothing 
but  red-letter  events  to  a  young  economic  enthusiast 
one  year  out  of  college,  studying  Trade-Unionism  in 
the  London  School  of  Economics. 

Then  there  was  his  South-African  trip.  He  was  sent 
there  by  a  London  firm,  to  expert  a  mine  near  Johan- 
nesburg. Although  he  cabled  five  times,  said  firm  sent 
no  money.  The  bitter  disgust  and  anguish  of  those 
weeks  —  neither  of  us  ever  had  much  patience  under 
such  circumstances.  But  he  experted  his  mine,  and 
found  it  absolutely  worthless;  explored  the  veldt  on  a 
second-hand  bicycle,  cooked  little  meals  of  bacon  and 
mush  wherever  he  found  himself,  and  wrote  to  me. 
Meanwhile  he  learned  much,  studied  the  coolie  ques- 
tion, investigated  mine-workings,  was  entertained  by 
his  old  college  mates — mining  experts  themselves  —  in 
Johannesburg.  There  was  the  letter  telling  of  the  bull 
fight  at  Zanzibar,  or  Delagoa  Bay,  or  some  seafaring 
port  thereabouts,  that  broke  his  heart,  it  was  such  a 
disappointment  —  "it  made  a  Kappa  tea  look  gory 
by  comparison."  And  the  letter  that  regretfully  ad- 
mitted that  perhaps,  after  all,  Persia  would  not  just 
do  to  settle  down  in.  About  that  time  he  wanted  Cali- 
fornia with  a  fearful  want,  and  was  all  done  with  for- 
eign parts,  and  declared  that  any  place  just  big  enough 
for  two  suited  him  —  it  did  not  need  to  be  as  far  away 
as  Persia  after  all.  At  last  he  borrowed  money  to  get 
back  to  Europe,  claiming  that  "he  had  learned  his 
lesson  and  learned  it  hard."  And  finally  he  came  home 
as  fast  as  ever  he  could  reach  Berkeley  —  did  not  stop 
even  to  telegraph. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  17 

I  had  planned  for  months  a  dress  I  knew  he  would 
love  to  have  me  greet  him  in.  It  was  hanging  ready  in 
the  closet.  As  it  was,  I  had  started  to  retire  —  in  the 
same  room  with  a  Freshman  whom  I  was  supposed  to 
be  "rushing"  hard  —  when  I  heard  a  soft  whistle  — 
our  whistle  —  under  my  window.  My  heart  stopped 
beating.  I  just  grabbed  a  raincoat  and  threw  it  over 
me,  my  hair  down  in  a  braid,  and  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence  to  the  astounded  Freshman  I  dashed  out. 

My  father  had  said,  "If  neither  of  you  changes  your 
mind  while  Carl  is  away,  I  have  no  objection  to  your 
becoming  engaged."  In  about  ten  minutes  after  his 
return  we  were  formally  engaged,  on  a  bench  up  in 
the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum  grounds  —  our  favorite 
trysting-place.  It  would  have  been  foolish  to  waste 
a  new  dress  on  that  night.  I  was  clad  in  cloth  of  gold 
for  all  Carl  knew  or  cared,  or  could  see  in  the  dark, 
for  that  matter.  The  deserted  Freshman  was  sound 
asleep  when  I  got  back — and  joined  another  sorority. 

Thereafter,  for  a  time,  Carl  went  into  University 
Extension,  lecturing  on  Trade-Unionism  and  South 
Africa.  It  did  not  please  him  altogether,  and  finally 
my  father,  a  lawyer  himself,  persuaded  him  to  go  into 
law.  Carl  Parker  in  law!  How  we  used  to  shudder 
at  it  afterwards;  but  it  was  just  one  more  broadening 
experience  that  he  got  out  of  life. 

Then  came  the  San  Francisco  earthquake.  That  was 
the  end  of  my  Junior  year,  and  we  felt  we  had  to  be 
married  when  I  finished  college  —  nothing  else  mat- 
tered quite  as  much  as  that.  So  when  an  offer  came 
out  of  a  clear  sky  from  Halsey  and  Company,  for  Carl 


i8  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

to  be  a  bond-salesman  on  a  salary  that  assured  matri- 
mony within  a  year,  though  in  no  affluence,  and  the 
bottom  all  out  of  the  law  business  and  no  enthusiasm 
for  it  anyway,  we  held  a  consultation  and  decided  for 
bonds  and  marriage.  What  a  bond-salesman  Carl 
made!  Those  who  knew  him  knew  what  has  been  re- 
ferred to  as  "the  magic  of  his  personality,"  and  could 
understand  how  he  was  having  the  whole  of  a  small 
country  town  asking  him  to  dinner  on  his  second  visit. 
I  somehow  got  through  my  Senior  year;  but  how 
the  days  dragged!  For  all  I  could  think  of  was  Carl, 
Carl,  Carl,  and  getting  married.  Yet  no  one  —  no  one 
on  this  earth  —  ever  had  the  fun  out  of  their  engaged 
days  that  we  did,  when  we  were  together.  Carl  used  to 
say  that  the  accumulated  expenses  of  courting  me  for 
almost  four  years  came  to  $10.25.  He  just  guessed  at 
$10.25,  though  any  cheap  figure  would  have  done.  We 
just  did  not  care  about  doing  things  that  happened  to 
cost  money.  We  never  did  care  in  our  lives,  and  never 
would  have  cared,  no  matter  what  our  income  might 
be.  Undoubtedly  that  was  the  main  reason  we  were  so 
blissful  on  such  a  small  salary  in  University  work  — 
we  could  never  think,  at  the  time,  of  anything  much 
we  were  doing  without.  I  remember  that  the  happiest 
Christmas  we  almost  ever  had  was  over  in  the  coun- 
try, when  we  spent  under  two  dollars  for  all  of  us.  We 
were  absolutely  down  to  bed-rock  that  year  anyway. 
(It  was  just  after  we  paid  off  our  European  debt.) 
Carl  gave  me  a  book,  "The  Pastor's  Wife,"  and  we 
gloated  over  it  together  all  Christmas  afternoon!  We 
gave  each  of  the  boys  a  ten-cent  cap-pistol  and  five 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  19 

cents*  worth  of  caps  —  they  were  in  their  Paradise. 
I  mended  three  shirts  of  Carl's  that  had  been  in  my 
basket  so  long  they  were  really  like  new  to  him,  — 
he'd  forgotten  he  owned  them!  —  laundered  them, 
and  hung  the  trio,  tied  in  tissue  paper  and  red  ribbon, 
on  the  tree.  That  was  a  Christmas! 

He  used  to  claim,  too,  that,  as  I  got  so  excited  over 
five  cents*  worth  of  gum-drops,  there  was  no  use  in- 
vesting in  a  dollar's  worth  of  French  mixed  candy  — 
especially  if  one  had  n't  the  dollar.  We  always  loved 
tramping  more  than  anything  else,  and  just  prowling 
around  the  streets  arm-in-arm,  ending  perhaps  with 
an  ice-cream  soda.  Not  over-costly,  any  of  it.  I  have 
kept  some  little  reminder  of  almost  every  spree  we 
took  in  our  four  engaged  years  —  it  is  a  book  of  sheer 
joy  from  cover  to  cover.  Except  always,  always  the 
need  of  saying  good-bye:  it  got  so  that  it  seemed 
almost  impossible  to  say  it. 

And  then  came  the  day  when  it  did  not  have  to 
be  said  each  time  —  that  day  of  days,  September  7, 
1907,  when  we  were  married.  Idaho  for  our  honey- 
moon had  to  be  abandoned,  as  three  weeks  was  the 
longest  vacation  period  we  could  wring  from  a  soul- 
less bond-house.  But  not  even  Idaho  could  have 
brought  us  more  joy  than  our  seventy-five-mile  trip 
up  the  Rogue  River  in  Southern  Oregon.  We  hired  an 
old  buckboard  and  two  ancient,  almost  immobile,  so- 
called  horses,  —  they  needed  scant  attention,  —  and 
with  provisions,  gun,  rods,  and  sleeping-bags,  we 
started  forth.  The  woods  were  in  their  autumn  glory, 
the  fish  were  biting,  corn  was  ripe  along  the  road- 


20  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

side,  and  apples  —  Rogue  River  apples  —  made  red 
blotches  under  every  tree.  "Help  yourselves!"  the 
farmers  would  sing  out,  or  would  not  sing  out.  It  was 
all  one  to  us. 

I  found  that,  along  with  his  every  other  accomplish- 
ment, I  had  married  an  expert  camp  cook.  He  found 
that  he  had  married  a  person  who  could  not  even 
boil  rice.  The  first  night  out  on  our  trip,  Carl  said, 
"You  start  the  rice  while  I  tend  to  the  horses."  He 
knew  I  could  not  cook  —  I  had  planned  to  take  a 
course  in  Domestic  Science  on  graduation;  however, 
he  preferred  to  marry  me  earlier,  inexperienced,  than 
later,  experienced.  But  evidently  he  thought  even  a 
low-grade  moron  could  boil  rice.  The  bride  of  his 
heart  did  not  know  that  rice  swelled  when  it  boiled. 
We  were  hungry,  we  would  want  lots  of  rice,  so  I  put 
lots  in.  By  the  time  Carl  came  back  I  had  partly 
cooked  rice  in  every  utensil  we  owned,  including  the 
coffee-pot  and  the  wash-basin.  And  still  he  loved  me! 

That  honeymoon!  Lazy  horses  poking  unprodded 
along  an  almost  deserted  mountain  road ;  glimpses  of 
the  river  lined  with  autumn  reds  and  yellows;  camp 
made  toward  evening  in  any  spot  that  looked  appeal- 
ing —  and  all  spots  looked  appealing ;  two  fish-rods 
out;  consultation  as  to  flies;  leave-taking  for  half  an 
hour's  parting,  while  one  went  up  the  river  to  try  his 
luck,  one  down.  Joyous  reunion,  with  much  luck  or 
little  luck,  but  always  enough  for  supper:  trout  rolled 
in  cornmeal  and  fried,  corn  on  the  cob  just  garnered 
from  a  willing  or  unwilling  farmer  that  afternoon, 
corn-bread,  —  the  most  luscious  corn-bread  in  the 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  21 

world,  baked  camper-style  by  the  man  of  the  party, 
—  and  red,  red  apples,  eaten  by  two  people  who  had 
waited  four  years  for  just  that.  Evenings  in  a  sandy 
nook  by  the  river's  edge,  watching  the  stars  come  out 
above  the  water.  Adventures,  such  as  losing  Choc- 
olada,  the  brown  seventy-eight-year-old  horse,  and 
finding  her  up  to  her  neck  in  a  deep  stream  running 
through  a  grassy  meadow  with  perpendicular  banks 
on  either  side.  We  walked  miles  till  we  found  a  farmer. 
With  the  aid  of  himself  and  his  tools,  plus  a  stout  rope 
and  a  tree,  in  an  afternoon's  time  we  dug  and  pulled 
and  hauled  and  yanked  Chocolada  up  and  out  onto 
dry  land,  more  nearly  dead  than  ever  by  that  time. 
The  ancient  senile  had  just  fallen  in  while  drinking. 

We  made  a  permanent  camp  for  one  week  seventy- 
five  miles  up  the  river,  in  a  spot  so  deserted  that  we 
had  to  cut  the  road  through  to  reach  it.  There  we 
laundered  our  change  of  overalls  and  odds  and  ends, 
using  the  largest  cooking  utensil  for  boiling  what  was 
boiled,  and  all  the  food  tasted  of  Ivory  soap  for  two 
days;  but  we  did  not  mind  even  that.  And  then,  after 
three  weeks,  back  to  skirts  and  collars  and  civiliza- 
tion, and  a  continued  honeymoon  from  Medford, 
Oregon,  to  Seattle,  Washington,  doing  all  the  country 
banks  en  route.  In  Portland  we  had  to  be  separated 
for  one  whole  day  —  it  seemed  nothing  short  of 
harrowing. 

Then  came  Seattle  and  house-hunting.  We  had  a 
hundred  dollars  a  month  to  live  on,  and  every  apart- 
ment we  looked  at  rented  for  from  sixty  dollars  up. 
Finally,  in  despair,  we  took  two  wee  rooms,  a  wee-er 


22  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

kitchen,  and  bath,  for  forty  dollars.  It  was  just  before 
the  panic  in  1907,  and  rents  were  exorbitant.  And 
from  having  seventy-five  dollars  spending  money  a 
month  before  I  was  married,  I  jumped  to  keeping 
two  of  us  on  sixty  dollars,  which  was  what  was  left 
after  the  rent  was  paid.  I  am  not  rationalizing  when 
I  say  I  am  glad  that  we  did  not  have  a  cent  more.  I]t 
was  a  real  sporting  event  to  make  both  ends  meet! 
And  we  did  it,  and  saved  a  dollar  or  so,  just  to  show 
we  could.  Any  and  every  thing  we  commandeered  to 
help  maintain  our  solvency.  Seattle  was  quite  given 
to  food  fairs  in  those  days,  and  we  kept  a  weather 
eye  out  for  such.  We  would  eat  no  lunch,  make  for  the 
Food  Show  about  three,  nibble  at  samples  all  after- 
noon, and  come  home  well-fed  about  eight,  having 
bought  enough  necessities  here  and  there  to  keep  our 
consciences  from  hurting. 

Much  of  the  time  Carl  had  to  be  on  the  road  selling 
bonds,  and  we  almost  grieved  our  hearts  out  over 
that.  In  fact,  we  got  desperate,  and  when  Carl  was 
offered  an  assistant  cashiership  in  a  bank  in  Ellens- 
burg,  Washington,  we  were  just  about  to  accept  it, 
when  the  panic  came,  and  it  was  all  for  retrenchment 
in  banks.  Then  we  planned  farming,  planned  it  with 
determination.  It  was  too  awful,  those  good-byes. 
Each  got  worse  and  harder  than  the  last.  We  had 
divine  days  in  between,  to  be  sure,  when  we'd  prowl 
out  into  the  woods  around  the  city,  with  a  picnic  lunch, 
or  bummel  along  the  waterfront,  ending  at  a  counter 
we  knew,  which  produced,  or  the  man  behind  it  pro- 
duced, delectable  and  cheap  clubhouse  sandwiches. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  23 

The  bond  business,  and  business  conditions  gen- 
erally in  the  Northwest,  got  worse  and  worse.  In 
March,  after  six  months  of  Seattle,  we  were  called 
back  to  the  San  Francisco  office.  Business  results  were 
better,  Carl's  salary  was  raised  considerably,  but 
there  were  still  separations. 


CHAPTER  IV 

On  July  3,  the  Marvelous  Son  was  born,  and  never 
was  there  such  a  father.  Even  the  trained  nurse,  hard- 
ened to  new  fathers  by  years  of  experience,  admitted 
that  she  never  had  seen  any  one  take  parenthood  quite 
so  hard.  Four  times  in  the  night  he  crept  in  to  see  if 
the  baby  was  surely  breathing.  We  were  in  a  very 
quiet  neighborhood,  yet  the  next  day,  being  Fourth 
of  July,  now  and  then  a  pop  would  be  heard.  At  each 
report  of  a  cap-pistol  a  block  away,  Carl  would  dash 
out  and  vehemently  protest  to  a  group  of  scornful 
youngsters  that  they  would  wake  our  son.  As  if  a  one- 
day-old  baby  would  seriously  consider  waking  if  a 
giant  fire-cracker  went  off  under  his  bed! 

Those  were  magic  days.  Three  of  us  in  the  family 
instead  of  two  —  and  separations  harder  than  ever. 
Once  in  all  the  ten  and  a  half  years  we  were  married  I 
saw  Carl  Parker  downright  discouraged  over  his  own 
affairs,  and  that  was  the  day  I  met  him  down  town  in 
Oakland  and  he  announced  that  he  just  could  not 
stand  the  bond  business  any  longer.  He  had  come  to 
dislike  it  heartily  as  a  business;  and  then,  leaving  the 
boy  and  me  was  not  worth  the  whole  financial  world 
put  together.  Since  his  European  experience,  —  meet- 
ing the  Webbs  and  their  kind,  —  he  had  had  a  han- 
kering for  University  work,  but  he  felt  that  the  money 
return  was  so  small  he  simply  could  not  contemplate 
raising  a  family  on  it.  But  now  we  were  desperate. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  25 

We  longed  for  a  life  that  would  give  us  the  maximum 
chance  to  be  together.  Cold-bloodedly  we  decided 
that  University  work  would  give  us  that  opportunity, 
and  the  long  vacations  would  give  us  our  mountains. 

The  work  itself  made  its  strong  appeal,  too.  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Morse  Stephens  and  Professor  Miller  of 
the  University  of  California  had  long  urged  Carl  to  go 
into  teaching;  and  at  last  we  decided  that,  even  if 
it  meant  living  on  husks  and  skimmed  milk  all  our 
days,  at  least  we  would  be  eating  what  there  was  to 
eat  together,  three  meals  a  day  every  day.  We  cashed 
in  our  savings,  we  drew  on  everything  there  was  to 
draw  on,  and  on  February  i,  1909,  the  three  of  us 
embarked  for  Harvard  —  with  fifty-six  dollars  and 
seventy-five  cents  excess-baggage  to  pay  at  the  depot, 
such  young  ignoramuses  we  were. 

That  trip  East  was  worth  any  future  hardship  we 
might  have  reaped.  Our  seven-months-old  baby  was 
one  of  the  young  saints  of  the  world  —  not  once  in 
the  five  days  did  he  peep.  We'd  pin  him  securely  in 
the  lower  berth  of  our  compartment  for  his  nap,  and 
back  we  would  fly  to  the  corner  of  the  rear  platform 
of  the  observation  car,  and  gloat,  just  gloat,  over  how 
we  had  come  into  the  inheritance  of  all  creation.  We 
owned  the  world.  And  I,  who  had  never  been  farther 
from  my  California  home  town  than  Seattle,  who 
never  had  seen  real  snow,  except  that  Christmas  when 
we  spent  four  days  at  the  Scenic  Hot  Springs  in  the 
Cascades,  and  skied  and  sledded  and  spilled  around 
like  six-year-olds!  But  stretches  and  stretches  of 
snow!  And  then,  just  traveling,  and  together! 


26  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

And  to  be  in  Boston !  We  took  a  room  with  a  bath 
in  the  Copley  Square  Hotel.  The  first  evening  we  ar- 
rived, Nandy  (Carleton,  Jr.)  rolled  off  the  bed;  so 
when  we  went  gallivanting  about  Boston,  shopping 
for  the  new  home,  we  left  him  in  the  bath-tub  where 
he  could  not  fall  out.  We  padded  it  well  with  pillows, 
there  was  a  big  window  letting  in  plenty  of  fresh  air, 
and  we  instructed  the  chambermaid  to  peep  at  him 
now  and  then.  And  there  we  would  leave  him,  well- 
nourished  and  asleep.  (By  the  time  that  story  had 
been  passed  around  by  enough  people  in  the  home 
town,  it  developed  that  one  day  the  baby  —  just 
seven  months  old,  remember  —  got  up  and  turned  on 
the  water,  and  was  found  by  the  chambermaid  sinking 
for  the  third  time.) 

Something  happened  to  the  draft  from  the  home 
bank,  which  should  have  reached  Boston  almost  at 
the  same  time  we  did.  We  gazed  into  the  family 
pocket-book  one  fine  morning,  to  find  it,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  empty.  Hurried  meeting  of  the  finance 
committee.  By  unanimous  consent  of  all  present,  we 
decided  —  as  many  another  mortal  in  a  strange  town 
has  decided  —  on  the  pawnshop.  I  wonder  if  my  dear 
grandmother  will  read  this  —  she  probably  will.  Carl 
first  submitted  his  gold  watch  —  the  baby  had 
dropped  it  once,  and  it  had  shrunk  thereby  in  the  eyes 
of  the  pawnshop  man,  though  not  in  ours.  The  only 
other  valuable  we  had  along  with  us  was  my  grand- 
mother's wedding  present  to  me,  which  had  been  my 
grandfather's  wedding  present  to  her  —  a  glorious 
pld-fashioned  breast-pin.  We  were  allowed  fifty  dol- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  27 

lars  on  it,  which  saved  the  day.  What  will  my  grand- 
mother say  when  she  knows  that  her  bridal  gift  re- 
sided for  some  days  in  a  Boston  pawnshop? 

We  moved  out  to  Cambridge  in  due  time,  and  set- 
tled at  Bromley  Court,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  Yard. 
We  thrilled  to  all  of  it  —  we  drank  in  every  ounce  of 
dignity  and  tradition  the  place  afforded,  and  our  wild 
Western  souls  exulted.  We  knew  no  one  when  we 
reached  Boston,  but  our  first  Sunday  we  were  invited 
to  dinner  in  Cambridge  by  two  people  who  were,  ever 
after,  our  cordial,  faithful  friends  —  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
John  Graham  Brooks.  They  made  us  feel  at  once  that 
Cambridge  was  not  the  socially  icy  place  it  is  painted 
in  song  and  story.  Then  I  remember  the  afternoon 
that  I  had  a  week's  wash  strung  on  an  improvised  line 
back  and  forth  from  one  end  of  our  apartment  to  the 
other.  Just  as  I  hung  the  last  damp  garment,  the  bell 
rang,  and  there  stood  an  immaculate  gentleman  in  a 
cutaway  and  silk  hat,  who  had  come  to  call  —  an  old 
friend  of  my  mother's.  He  ducked  under  wet  clothes, 
and  we  set  two  chairs  where  we  could  see  each  other, 
and  yet  nothing  was  dripping  down  either  of  our 
necks;  and  there  we  conversed,  and  he  ended  by  in- 
viting us  both  to  dinner  —  on  Marlborough  Street,  at 
that!  He  must  have  loved  my  mother  very  dearly  to 
have  sought  further  acquaintance  with  folk  who  hung 
the  family  wash  in  the  hall  and  the  living-room  and 
dining-room.  His  house  on  Marlborough  Street!  We 
boldly  and  excitedly  figured  up  on  the  way  home,  that 
they  spent  on  the  one  meal  they  fed  us  more  than  it 
cost  us  to  live  for  two  weeks  —  they  honestly  did. 


28  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Then  there  was  the  dear  "  Jello"  lady  at  the  mar- 
ket. I  wish  she  would  somehow  happen  to  read  this, 
so  as  to  know  that  we  have  never  forgotten  her. 
Every  Saturday  the  three  of  us  went  to  the  market, 
and  there  was  the  Jello  lady  with  her  samples.  The 
helpings  she  dished  for  us  each  time !  She  brought  the 
man  to  whom  she  was  engaged  to  call  on  us  just  before 
we  left.  I  wonder  if  they  got  married,  and  where  they 
are,  and  if  she  still  remembers  us.  She  used  to  say  she 
just  waited  for  Saturdays  and  our  coming.  Then  there 
was  dear  Granny  Jones,  who  kept  a  boarding-house 
half  a  block  away.  I  do  not  remember  how  we  came 
to  know  her,  but  some  good  angel  saw  to  it.  She  used 
to  send  around  little  bowls  of  luscious  dessert,  and 
half  a  pie,  or  some  hot  muffins.  Then  I  was  always 
grateful  also  —  for  it  made  such  a  good  story,  and  it 
was  true  —  to  the  New  England  wife  of  a  fellow  grad- 
uate student  who  remarked,  when  I  told  her  we  had 
one  baby  and  another  on  the  way,  "How  interesting 
—  just  like  the  slums!" 

We  did  our  own  work,  of  course,  and  we  lived  on 
next  to  nothing.  I  wonder  now  how  we  kept  so  well 
that  year.  Of  course,  we  fed  the  baby  everything  he 
should  have,  —  according  to  Holt  in  those  days,  — 
and  we  ate  the  mutton  left  from  his  broth  and  the 
beef  after  the  juice  had  been  squeezed  out  of  it  for 
him,  and  bought  storage  eggs  ourselves,  and  queer 
butter  out  of  a  barrel,  and  were  absolutely,  absolutely 
blissful.  Perhaps  we  should  have  spent  more  on  food 
and  less  on  baseball.  I  am  glad  we  did  not.  Almost 
every  Saturday  afternoon  that  first  semester  we  fared 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  29 

forth  early,  Nandy  in  his  go-cart,  to  get  a  seat  in  the 
front  row  of  the  baseball  grandstand.  I  remember  one 
Saturday  we  were  late,  front  seats  all  taken.  We  had 
to  pack  baby  and  go-cart  more  than  half-way  up  to 
the  top.  There  we  barricaded  him,  still  in  the  go-cart, 
in  the  middle  of  the  aisle.  Along  about  the  seventh  inn- 
ing, the  game  waxed  particularly  exciting  —  we  were 
beside  ourselves  with  enthusiasm.  Fellow  onlookers 
seemed  even  more  excited  —  they  called  out  things 

—  they  seemed  to  be  calling  in  our  direction.  Fine 
parents  we  were  —  there  was  Nandy,  go-cart  and  all, 
bumpety-bumping  down  the  grandstand  steps. 

I  remember  again  the  Stadium  on  the  day  of  the 
big  track  meet.  Every  time  the  official  announcer 
would  put  the  megaphone  to  his  mouth,  to  call  out 
winners  and  time  to  a  hushed  and  eager  throng, 
Nandy,  not  yet  a  year  old,  would  begin  to  squeal  at 
the  top  of  his  lungs  for  joy.  Nobody  could  hear  a  word 
the  official  said.  We  were  as  distressed  as  any  one 

—  we,  too,  had  pencils  poised  to  jot  down  records. 
Carl  studied  very  hard.  The  first  few  weeks,  until 

we  got  used  to  the  new  wonder  of  things,  he  used  to 
run  home  from  college  whenever  he  had  a  spare 
minute,  just  to  be  sure  he  was  that  near.  At  that  time 
he  was  rather  preparing  to  go  into  Transportation  as 
his  main  economic  subject.  But  by  the  end  of  the  year 
he  knew  Labor  would  be  his  love.  (His  first  published 
economic  article  was  a  short  one  that  appeared  in  the 
"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics"  for  May,  1910, 
on  "The  Decline  of  Trade-Union  Membership.")  We 
had  a  tragic  summer. 


30  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Carl  felt  that  he  must  take  his  Master's  degree,  but 
he  had  no  foreign  language.  Three  terrible,  wicked, 
unforgivable  professors  assured  him  that,  if  he  could 
be  in  Germany  six  weeks  during  summer  vacation,  he 
could  get  enough  German  to  pass  the  examination  for 
the  A.M.  We  believed  them,  and  he  went;  though  of 
all  the  partings  we  ever  had,  that  was  the  very  worst. 
Almost  at  the  last  he  just  could  not  go;  but  we  were 
so  sure  that  it  would  solve  the  whole  A.M.  problem. 
He  went  third  class  on  a  German  steamer,  since  we 
had  money  for  nothing  better.  The  food  did  distress 
even  his  unfinicky  soul.  After  a  particularly  sad  offer- 
ing of  salt  herring,  uncooked,  on  a  particularly  rough 
day,  he  wrote,  "I  find  I  am  not  a  good  Hamburger 
German.  The  latter  eat  all  things  in  all  weather." 

Oh,  the  misery  of  that  summer!  We  never  talked 
about  it  much.  He  went  to  Freiburg,  to  a  German 
cobbler's  family,  but  later  changed,  as  the  cobbler's 
son  looked  upon  him  as  a  dispensation  of  Providence, 
sent  to  practise  his  English  upon.  His  heart  was  break- 
ing, and  mine  was  breaking,  and  he  was  working  at 
German  (and  languages  came  fearfully  hard  for  him) 
morning,  afternoon,  and  night,  with  two  lessons  a 
day,  his  only  diversion  being  a  daily  walk  up  a  hill, 
with  a  cake  of  soap  and  a  towel,  to  a  secluded  water- 
fall he  discovered.  He  wrote  a  letter  and  a  postcard 
a  day  to  the  babe  and  me.  I  have  just  re-read  all  of 
them,  and  my  heart  aches  afresh  for  the  homesickness 
that  summer  meant  to  both  of  us. 

He  got  back  two  days  before  our  wedding  anniver- 
sary —  days  like  those  first  few  after  our  reunion  are 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  31 

not  given  to  many  mortals.  I  would  say  no  one  had 
ever  tasted  such  joy.  The  baby  gurgled  about,  and 
was  kissed  within  an  inch  of  his  life.  The  Jello  lady 
sent  around  a  dessert  of  sixteen  different  colors,  more 
or  less,  big  enough  for  a  family  of  eight,  as  her  wel- 
come home. 
About  six  weeks  later  we  called  our  beloved  Dr. 

J from  a  banquet  he  had  long  looked  forward  to, 

in  order  to  officiate  at  the  birth  of  our  second,  known 
as  Thomas-Elizabeth  up  to  October  17,  but  from 
about  ten-thirty  that  night  as  James  Stratton  Parker. 
We  named  him  after  my  grandfather,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  we  liked  the  name  Jim.  How  we  chuckled 
when  my  father's  congratulatory  telegram  came,  in 
which  he  claimed  pleasure  at  having  the  boy  nanied 
after  his  father,  but  cautioned  us  never  to  allow  him 
to  be  nicknamed.  I  remember  the  boresome  youth 
who  used  to  call,  week  in  week  out,  —  always  just 
before  a  meal,  —  and  we  were  so  hard  up,  and  got  so 
that  we  resented  feeding  such  an  impossible  person  so 
many  times.  He  dropped  in  at  noon  Friday  the  17th, 
for  lunch.  A  few  days  later  Carl  met  him  on  the  street 
and  announced  rapturously  the  arrival  of  the  new 
son.  The  impossible  person  hemmed  and  stammered: 
"Why  —  er  —  when  did  it  arrive?"  Carl,  all  beams, 
replied,  "The  very  evening  of  the  day  you  were  at 
our  house  for  lunch!"  We  never  laid  eyes  on  that  man 
again!  We  were  almost  four  months  longer  in  Cam- 
bridge, but  never  did  he  step  foot  inside  our  apart- 
ment. I  wish  some  one  could  have  psycho-analyzed 
him,  but  it 's  too  late  now.  He  died  about  a  year  after 


32  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

we  left  Cambridge.  I  always  felt  that  he  never  got 
over  the  shock  of  having  escaped  Jim's  arrival  by 
such  a  narrow  margin. 

And  right  here  I  must  tell  of  Dr.  J .  He  was  rec- 
ommended as  the  best  doctor  in  Cambridge,  but  very 
expensive.  "  We  may  have  to  economize  in  everything 
on  earth,"  said  Carl,  "  but  we'll  never  economize  on 

doctors."  So  we  had  Dr.  J ,  had  him  for  all  the 

minor  upsets  that  families  need  doctors  for;  had  him 
when  Jim  was  born;  had  him  through  a  queer  fever 
Nandy  developed  that  lasted  some  time;  had  him 
through  a  bad  case  of  grippe  I  got  (this  was  at  Christ- 
mastime, and  Carl  took  care  of  both  babies,  did  all 
the  cooking,  even  to  the  Christmas  turkey  I  was  well 
enough  to  eat  by  then,  got  up  every  two  hours  for 
three  nights  to  change  an  ice-pack  I  had  to  have  — 
that 's  the  kind  of  man  he  was !) ;  had  him  vaccinate 
both  children ;  and  then,  just  before  we  left  Cambridge, 
we  sat  and  held  his  bill,  afraid  to  open  the  envelope. 
At  length  we  gathered  our  courage,  and  gazed  upon 
charges  of  sixty-five  dollars  for  everything,  with  a 
wonderful  note  which  said  that,  if  we  would  be  incon- 
venienced in  paying  that,  he  would  not  mind  at  all  if 
he  got  nothing. 

Such  excitement!  We  had  expected  two  hundred 
dollars  at  the  least !  We  tore  out  and  bought  ten  cents* 
worth  of  doughnuts,  to  celebrate.  When  we  exclaimed 
to  him  over  his  goodness,  —  of  course  we  paid  the 
sixty-five  dollars,  —  all  he  said  was:  "Do  you  think 
a  doctor  is  blind?  And  does  a  man  go  steerage  to 
Europe  if  he  has  a  lot  of  money  in  the  bank?"  Bless 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  33 

that  doctor's  heart!  Bless  all  doctors'  hearts!  We 
went  through  our  married  life  in  the  days  of  our  finan- 
cial slimness,  with  kindness  shown  us  by  every  doctor 
we  ever  had.  I  remember  our  Heidelberg  German 
doctor  sent  us  a  bill  for  a  year  of  a  dollar  and  a  half. 
And  even  in  our  more  prosperous  days,  at  Carl's  last 
illness,  with  that  good  Seattle  doctor  calling  day  and 
night,  and  caring  for  me  after  Carl's  death,  he  refused 
to  send  any  bill  for  anything.  And  a  little  later,  when 
I  paid  a  long  overdue  bill  to  our  blessed  Oakland 
doctor  for  a  tonsil  operation,  he  sent  the  check  back 
torn  in  two.  Bless  doctors! 

When  we  left  for  Harvard,  we  had  an  idea  that  per- 
haps one  year  of  graduate  work  would  be  sufficient. 
Naturally,  about  two  months  was  enough  to  show  us 
that  one  year  would  get  us  nowhere.  Could  we  finance 
an  added  year  at,  perhaps,  Wisconsin?  And  then,  in 
November,  Professor  Miller  of  Berkeley  called  to  talk 
things  over  with  Carl.  Anon  he  remarked,  more  or  less 
casually,  "The  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  have  a  year's 
study  in  Germany,"  and  proceeded  to  enlarge  on  that 
idea.  We  sat  dumb,  and  the  minute  the  door  was 
closed  after  him,  we  flopped.  "What  was  the  man 
thinking  of  —  to  suggest  a  year  in  Germany,  when 
we  have  no  money  and  two  babies,  one  not  a  year 
and  a  half,  and  one  six  weeks  old!"  Preposterous! 

That  was  Saturday  afternoon.  By  Monday  morning 
we  had  decided  we  would  go!  Thereupon  we  wrote 
West  to  finance  the  plan,  and  got  beautifully  sat  upon 
for  our  "notions."  If  we  needed  money,  we  had  better 
give  up  this  whole  fool  University  idea  and  get  a 


34  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

decent  man-sized  job.  And  then  we  wrote  my  father, 
—  or,  rather,  I  wrote  him  without  telling  Carl  till 
after  the  letter  was  mailed,  —  and  bless  his  heart!  he 
replied  with  a  fat  God-bless-you-my-children  regis- 
tered letter,  with  check  enclosed,  agreeing  to  my  stip- 
ulation that  it  should  be  a  six-per-cent  business  affair. 
Suppose  we  could  not  have  raised  that  money  —  sup- 
pose our  lives  had  been  minus  that  German  experi- 
ence! Bless  fathers!  They  may  scold  and  fuss  at  ro- 
mance, and  have  "good  sensible  ideas  of  their  own'* 
on  such  matters,  but  —  bless  fathers! 


CHAPTER  V 

We  finished  our  year  at  Harvard,  giving  up  the  A.M. 
idea  for  the  present.  Carl  got  A's  in  every  subject  and 
was  asked  to  take  a  teaching  fellowship  under  Ripley; 
but  it  was  Europe  for  us.  We  set  forth  February  22, 
1909,  in  a  big  snowstorm,  with  two  babies,  and  one 
thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy-six  bundles,  bags, 
and  presents.  Jim  was  in  one  of  those  fur-bags  that 
babies  use  in  the  East.  Everything  we  were  about  to 
forget  the  last  minute  got  shoved  into  that  bag  with 
Jim,  and  it  surely  began  to  look  as  if  we  had  brought 
a  young  and  very  lumpy  mastodon  into  the  world! 

We  went  by  boat  from  Boston  to  New  York,  and 
sailed  on  the  Pennsylvania  February  24.  People  wrote 
us  in  those  days:  "You  two  brave  people  —  think  of 
starting  to  Europe  with  two  babies!"  Brave  was  the 
last  word  to  use.  Had  we  worried  or  had  fears  over 
anything,  and  yet  fared  forth,  we  should  perhaps  have 
been  brave.  As  it  was,  I  can  feel  again  the  sensation 
of  leaving  New  York,  gazing  back  on  the  city  build- 
ings and  bridges  bathed  in  sunshine  after  the  storm. 
Exultant  joy  was  in  our  hearts,  that  was  all.  Not  one 
worry,  not  one  concern,  not  one  small  drop  of  home- 
sickness. We  were  to  see  Europe  together,  yeare  be- 
fore we  had  dreamed  it  possible.  It  just  seemed  too 
glorious  to  be  true.  "Brave"?  Far  from  it.  Simply 
eager,  glowing,  filled  to  the  brim  with  a  determination 
to  drain  every  day  to  the  full. 


36  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

I  discovered  that,  while  my  husband  had  married  a 
female  who  could  not  cook  rice  (though  she  learned), 
I  had  taken  unto  myself  a  spouse  who  curled  up  green 
half  a  day  out  on  the  ocean,  and  stayed  that  way  for 
about  six  days.  He  tried  so  desperately  to  help  with 
the  babies,  but  it  always  made  matters  worse.  If  I  had 
turned  green,  too  —  But  babies  and  I  prospered  with- 
out interruption,  though  some  ants  did  try  to  eat 
Jim's  scalp  off  one  night —  "sugar  ants"  the  doctor 
called  them.  "They  knew  their  business,"  our  dad  re- 
marked. We  were  three  days  late  getting  into  Ham- 
burg —  fourteen  days  on  the  ocean,  all  told.  And  then 
to  be  in  Hamburg  —  in  Germany  —  in  Europe !  I  re- 
member our  first  meal  in  the  queer  little  cheap  hotel 
we  rooted  out.  "Eier''  was  the  only  word  on  the  bill 
of  fare  we  could  make  out,  so  Carl  brushed  up  his 
German  and  ordered  four  for  us,  fried.  And  the  waiter 
brought  four  each.  He  probably  declared  for  years 
that  all  Americans  always  eat  four  fried  eggs  each 
and  every  night  for  supper. 

We  headed  for  Leipzig  at  once,  and  there  Carl 
unearthed  the  Pension  Schroter  on  Sophien  Platz. 
There  we  had  two  rooms  and  all  the  food  we  could  eat, 

—  far  too  much  for  us  to  eat,  and  oh !  so  delicious,  — 
for  fifty-five  dollars  a  month  for  the  entire  family,  al- 
though Jim  hardly  ranked  as  yet,  economically  speak- 
ing, as  part  of  the  consuming  public.  We  drained 
Leipzig  to  the  dregs  —  a  good  German  idiom.  Carl 
worked  at  his  German  steadily,  almost  frantically , with 
a  lesson  every  day  along  with  all  his  university  work 

—  a  seven  o'clock  lecture  by  Biicher  every  morning 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  37 

being  the  cheery  start  for  the  day,  and  we  blocks  and 
blocks  from  the  University.  I  think  of  Carl  through 
those  days  with  extra  pride,  though  it  is  hard  to  de- 
cide that  I  was  ever  prouder  of  him  at  one  time  than 
another.  But  he  strained  and  labored  without  ceasing 
at  such  an  uninspiring  job.  All  his  hard  study  that 
broken-hearted  summer  at  Freiburg  had  given  him 
no  single  word  of  an  economic  vocabulary.  In  Leipzig 
he  listened  hour  by  hour  to  the  lectures  of  his  German 
professors,  sometimes  not  understanding  an  impor- 
tant word  for  several  days,  yet  exerting  every  intel- 
lectual muscle  to  get  some  light  in  his  darkness.  Then, 
for  hours  each  day  and  almost  every  evening,  it  was 
grammar,  grammar,  grammar,  till  he  wondered  at 
times  if  all  life  meant  an  understanding  of  the  sub- 
junctive. Then,  little  by  little,  rays  of  hope.  "  I  caught 

five  words  in *s  lecture  to-day!"  Then  it  was  ten, 

then  twenty.  Never  a  lecture  of  any  day  did  he  miss. 
We  stole  moments  for  joy  along  the  way.  First,  of 
course,  there  was  the  opera  —  grand  opera  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  seat.  How  Wagner  bored  us  at  first  —  ex- 
cept the  parts  here  and  there  that  we  had  known  all 
our  lives.  Neither  of  us  had  had  any  musical  education 
to  speak  of;  each  of  us  got  great  joy  out  of  what  we 
considered  "good"  music,  but  which  was  evidently 
low-brow.  And  Wagner  at  first  was  too  much  for  us. 
That  night  in  Leipzig  we  heard  the  "Walkiire!"  — 
utterly  aghast  and  rather  impatient  at  so  much  non- 
understandable  noise.  Then  we  would  drop  down 
to  "Carmen,"  "La  Boheme,"  Hoffman's  "Erzahl- 
ung,"  and  think,  "This  is  life!"  Each  night  that  we 


38  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

spared  for  a  spree  we  sought  out  some  beer-hall  —  as 
unfrequented  a  one  as  possible,  to  get  all  the  local 
color  we  could. 

Once  Carl  decided  that,  as  long  as  we  had  come  so 
far,  I  must  get  a  glimpse  of  real  European  night-life 
—  it  might  startle  me  a  bit,  but  would  do  no  harm. 
So,  after  due  deliberation,  he  led  me  to  the  Caf6 
Bauer,  the  reputed  wild  and  questionable  resort  of 
Leipzig  night-life,  though  the  pension  glanced  ceiling- 
wards  and  sighed  and  shook  their  heads.  I  do  not 
know  just  what  I  did  expect  to  see,  but  I  know  that 
what  I  saw  was  countless  stolid  family  parties  —  on 
all  sides  grandmas  and  grandpas  and  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, and  the  babies  in  high  chairs  beating  the  tables 
with  spoons.  It  was  quite  the  most  moral  atmosphere 
we  ever  found  ourselves  in.  That  is  what  you  get  for 
deliberately  setting  out  to  see  the  wickedness  of  the 
world ! 

From  Leipzig  we  went  to  Berlin.  We  did  not  want 
to  go  to  Berlin  —  Jena  was  the  spot  we  had  in  mind. 
Just  as  a  few  months  at  Harvard  showed  us  that  one 
year  there  would  be  but  a  mere  start,  so  one  semester 
in  Germany  showed  us  that  one  year  there  would  get 
us  nowhere.  We  must  stay  longer,  —  from  one  to  two 
years  longer,  —  but  how,  alas,  how  finance  it?  That 
eternal  question!  We  finally  decided  that,  if  we  took 
the  next  semester  or  so  in  Berlin,  Carl  could  earn 
money  enough  coaching  to  keep  us  going  without 
having  to  borrow  more.  So  to  Berlin  we  went.  We 
accomplished  our  financial  purpose,  but  at  too  great 
a  cost. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  39 

In  Berlin  we  found  a  small  furnished  apartment  on 
the  ground  floor  of  a  Gartenhaus  in  Charlottenburg 
—  Mommsen  Strasse  it  was.  At  once  Carl  started  out 
to  find  coaching;  and  how  he  found  it  always  seemed 
to  me  an  illustration  of  the  way  he  could  succeed  at 
anything  anywhere.  We  knew  no  one  in  Berlin.  First 
he  went  to  the  minister  of  the  American  church ;  he  in 
turn  gave  him  names  of  Americans  who  might  want 
coaching,  and  then  Carl  looked  up  those  people.  In 
about  two  months  he  had  all  the  coaching  he  could 
possibly  handle,  and  we  could  have  stayed  indefin- 
itely in  Berlin  in  comfort,  for  Carl  was  making  over 
one  hundred  dollars  a  month,  and  that  in  his  spare 
time. 

But  the  agony  of  those  months :  to  be  in  Germany 
and  yet  get  so  little  Germany  out  of  it !  We  had  splen- 
did letters  of  introduction  to  German  people,  from 
German  friends  we  had  made  in  Leipzig,  but  we  could 
not  find  a  chance  even  to  present  them.  Carl  coached 
three  youngsters  in  the  three  R's;  he  was  preparing 
two  of  the  age  just  above,  for  college;  he  had  one 
American  youth,  who  had  ambitions  to  burst  out 
monthly  in  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post"  stories; 
there  was  a  class  of  five  middle-aged  women,  who 
wanted  Shakespeare,  and  got  it;  two  classes  in  Current 
Events;  one  group  of  Christian  Scientists,  who  put  in 
a  modest  demand  for  the  history  of  the  world.  I  re- 
member Carl  had  led  them  up  to  Pepin  the  Short 
when  we  left  Berlin.  He  contracted  everything  and 
anything  except  one  group  who  desired  a  course  of 
lectures  on  Pragmatisni,  I  do  not  think  he  had  ever 


40  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

heard  of  the  term  then,  but  he  took  one  look  at  the 
lay  of  the  land  and  said  —  not  so!  In  his  last  years, 
when  he  became  such  a  worshiper  at  the  shrine  of 
William  James  and  John  Dewey,  we  often  used  to 
laugh  at  his  Berlin  profanity  over  the  very  idea  of 
ever  getting  a  word  of  such  "bunk"  into  his  head. 

But  think  of  the  strain  it  all  meant  —  lessons  and 
lessons  every  day,  on  every  subject  under  heaven, 
and  in  every  spare  minute  continued  grinding  at  his 
German,  and,  of  course,  every  day  numerous  hours  at 
the  University,  and  so  little  time  for  sprees  together. 
We  assumed  in  our  prosperity  the  luxury  of  a  maid 
—  the  unparalleled  Anna  Bederke  aus  Rothenburg, 
Kreis  Bumps  (?),  Posen,  at  four  dollars  a  month,  who 
for  a  year  and  a  half  was  the  amusement  and  desper- 
ation of  ourselves  and  our  friends.  Dear,  crooked- 
nosed,  one-good-eye  Anna!  She  adored  the  ground  we 
walked  on.  Our  German  friends  told  us  we  had  ruined 
her  forever  —  she  would  never  be  fit  for  the  discipline 
of  a  German  household  again.. Since  war  was  first  de- 
clared we  have  lost  all  track  of  Anna.  Was  her  Poland 
home  in  the  devastated  country?  Did  she  marry  a 
soldier,  and  is  she  too,  perhaps,  a  widow?  Faithful 
Anna,  do  not  think  for  one  minute  you  will  ever  be 
forgotten  by  the  Parkers. 

With  Anna  to  leave  the  young  with  now  and  then, 
I  was  able  to  get  in  two  sprees  a  week  with  Carl. 
Every  Wednesday  and  Saturday  noon  I  met  him  at 
the  University  and  we  had  lunch  together.  Usually  on 
Wednesdays  we  ate  at  the  Cafe  Rheingold,  the  spot  I 
think  of  with  most  affection  as  I  look  back  on  Berlin. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  41 

We  used  to  eat  in  the  "Shell  Room"  —  an  individual 
chicken-and-rice  pie  (as  much  chicken  as  rice),  a  vege- 
table, and  a  glass  of  beer  each,  for  thirty-five  cents  for 
both.  Saturdays  we  hunted  for  different  smaller  out- 
of-the-way  restaurants.  Wednesday  nights  "Uncle 
K."  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  always  came  to 
supper,  bringing  a  thirty-five-cent  rebate  his  landlady 
allowed  him  when  he  ate  out;  and  we  had  chicken 
every  Wednesday  night,  which  cost  —  a  fat  one  — 
never  more  than  fifty  cents.  (It  was  Uncle  K.  who 
wrote,  "The  world  is  so  different  with  Carl  gone!") 
Once  we  rented  bicycles  and  rode  all  through  the  Tier- 
garten,  Carl  and  I,  with  the  expected  stiffness  and 
soreness  next  day. 

Then  there  was  Christmas  in  Berlin.  Three  friends 
traveled  up  from  Rome  to  be  with  us,  two  students 
came  from  Leipzig,  and  four  from  Berlin  —  eleven  for 
dinner,  and  four  chairs  all  told.  It  was  a  regular 
"La  Boheme"  festival  —  one  guest  appearing  with 
a  bottle  of  wine  under  his  arm,  another  with  a  jar  of 
caviare  sent  him  from  Russia.  We  had  a  gay  week 
of  it  after  Christmas,  when  the  whole  eleven  of  us 
went  on  some  Dutch-treat  spree  every  night,  before 
going  back  to  our  studies. 

Then  came  those  last  grueling  months  in  Berlin, 
when  Carl  had  a  breakdown,  and  I  got  sick  nursing 
him  and  had  to  go  to  a  German  hospital ;  and  while  I 
was  there  Jim  was  threatened  with  pneumonia  and 
Nandy  got  tonsillitis.  In  the  midst  of  it  all  the  lease 
expired  on  our  Wohnung,  and  Carl  and  Anna  had  to 
move  the  family  out.  We  decided  that  we  had  had  all 


42  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

we  wanted  of  coaching  in  Berlin,  —  we  came  to  that 
conclusion  before  any  of  the  breakdowns,  —  threw 
our  pride  to  the  winds,  borrowed  more  money  from 
my  good  father,  and  as  soon  as  the  family  was  well 
enough  to  travel,  we  made  for  our  ever- to-be-adored 
Heidelberg. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Here  I  sit  back,  and  words  fail  me.  I  see  that  year  as 
a  kaleidoscope  of  one  joyful  day  after  another,  each 
rushing  by  and  leaving  the  memory  that  we  both  al- 
ways had,  of  the  most  perfect  year  that  was  ever  given 
to  mortals  on  earth.  I  remember  our  eighth  wedding 
anniversary  in  Berkeley.  We  had  been  going  night 
after  night  until  we  were  tired  of  going  anywhere,  — 
engagements  seemed  to  have  heaped  up,  —  so  we 
decided  that  the  very  happiest  way  we  could  cele- 
brate that  most-to-be-celebrated  of  all  dates  was  just 
to  stay  at  home,  plug  the  telephone,  pull  down  the 
blinds,  and  have  an  evening  by  ourselves.  Then  we 
got  out  everything  that  we  kept  as  mementos  of  our 
European  days,  and  went  over  them  —  all  the  post- 
cards, memory-books,  theatre  and  opera  programmes, 
etc.,  and,  lastly,  read  my  diary  —  I  had  kept  a  record 
of  every  day  in  Europe.  When  we  came  to  that  year 
in  Heidelberg,  we  just  could  not  believe  our  own  eyes. 
How  had  we  ever  managed  to  pack  a  year  so  full,  and 
live  to  tell  the  tale?  I  wish  I  could  write  a  story  of  just 
that  year.  We  swore  an  oath  in  Berlin  that  we  would 
make  Heidelberg  mean  Germany  to  us  —  no  English- 
speaking,  no  Americans.  As  far  as  it  lay  in  our  power, 
we  lived  up  to  it.  Carl  and  I  spoke  only  German  to 
each  other  and  to  the  children,  and  we  shunned  our 
fellow  countrymen  as  if  they  had  had  the  plague. 
And  Carl,  in  the  characteristic  way  he  had,  set  out 


44  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

to  fill  our  lives  with  all  the  real  German  life  we  could 
get  into  them,  not  waiting  for  that  life  to  come  of  itself 
—  which  it  might  never  have  done. 

One  afternoon,  on  his  way  home  from  the  Univer- 
sity, he  discovered  in  a  back  alley  the  Weiser  Boch, 
a  little  restaurant  and  beer-hall  so  full  of  local  color 
that  it  "hollered."  No,  it  did  not  holler:  it  was  too 
real  for  that.  It  was  sombre  and  carved  up  —  it 
whispered.  Carl  made  immediate  friends,  in  the  way 
he  had,  with  the  portly  Frau  and  Herr  who  ran  the 
Weiser  Boch:  they  desired  to  meet  me,  they  desired 
to  see  the  Kinder,  and  would  not  the  Herr  Student 
like  to  have  the  Weiser  Boch  lady  mention  his  name 
to  some  of  the  German  students  who  dropped  in? 
Carl  left  his  card,  and  wondered  if  anything  would 
come  of  it. 

The  very  next  afternoon,  —  such  a  glowing  account 
of  the  Amerikaner  the  Weiser  Boch  lady  must  have 
given,  —  a  real  truly  German  student,  in  his  corps 
cap  and  ribbons,  called  at  our  home  —  the  stiffest, 
most  decorous  heel-clicking  German  student  I  ever 
was  to  see.  His  embarrassment  was  great  when  he 
discovered  that  Carl  was  out,  and  I  seemed  to  take  it 
quite  for  granted  that  he  was  to  sit  down  for  a  mo- 
ment and  visit  with  me.  He  fell  over  everything.  But 
we  visited,  and  I  was  able  to  gather  that  his  corps 
wished  Herr  Student  Par-r-r-ker  to  have  beer  with 
them  the  following  evening.  Then  he  bowed  himself 
backwards  and  out,  and  fled. 

I  could  scarce  wait  for  Carl  to  get  home  —  it  was 
too  good  to  be  true.  And  that  was  but  the  beginning. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  45 

Invitation  after  invitation  came  to  Carl,  first  from  one 
corps,  then  from  another;  almost  every  Saturday 
night  he  saw  German  student-life  first  hand  some- 
where, and  at  least  one  day  a  week  he  was  invited  to 
the  duels  in  the  Hirsch  Gasse.  Little  by  little  we  got 
the  students  to  our  Wohnung ;  then  we  got  chummier 
and  chummier,  till  we  would  walk  up  Haupt  Strasse 
saluting  here,  passing  a  word  there,  invited  to  some 
student  function  one  night,  another  affair  another 
night.  The  students  who  lived  in  Heidelberg  had  us 
meet  their  families,  and  those  who  were  batching  in 
Heidelberg  often  had  us  come  to  their  rooms.  We  made 
friendships  during  that  year  that  nothing  could  ever 
mar. 

It  is  two  years  now  since  we  received  the  last  letter 
from  any  Heidelberg  chum.  Are  they  all  killed,  per- 
haps? And  when  we  can  communicate  again,  after  the 
war,  think  of  what  I  must  write  them!  Carl  was  a 
revelation  to  most  of  them  —  they  would  talk  about 
him  to  me,  and  ask  if  all  Americans  were  like  him,  so 
fresh  in  spirit,  so  clean,  so  sincere,  so  full  of  fun,  and, 
with  it  all,  doing  the  finest  work  of  all  of  them  but  one 
in  the  University. 

The  economics  students  tried  to  think  of  some  way 
of  influencing  Alfred  Weber  to  give  another  course  of 
lectures  at  the  University.  He  was  in  retirement  at 
Heidelberg,  but  still  the  adored  of  the  students.  Fi- 
nally, they  decided  that  a  committee  of  three  should 
represent  them  and  make  a  personal  appeal.  Carl  was 
one  of  the  three  chosen.  The  report  soon  flew  around, 
how,  in  Weber's  august  presence,  the  Amerikaner  had 


46  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  —  even  sat  for  a 
few  moments  on  the  edge  of  Weber's  desk.  The  two 
Germans,  posed  like  ramrods,  expected  to  see  such  in- 
formality shoved  out  bodily.  Instead,  when  they  took 
their  leave,  the  Herr  Professor  had  actually  patted 
the  Amerikaner  on  the  shoulder,  and  said  he  guessed 
he  would  give  the  lectures. 

Then  his  report  in  Gothein's  Seminar,  which  went 
so  well  that  I  fairly  burst  with  pride.  He  had  worked 
day  and  night  on  that.  I  was  to  meet  him  at  eight 
after  it  had  been  given,  and  we  were  to  have  a  cele- 
bration. I  was  standing  by  the  entrance  to  the  Uni- 
versity building  when  out  came  an  enthused  group  of 
jabbering  German  students,  Carl  in  their  midst.  They 
were  patting  him  on  the  back,  shaking  his  hands 
furiously ;  and  when  they  saw  me,  they  rushed  to  tell 
me  of  Carl's  success  and  how  Gothein  had  said  be- 
fore all  that  it  had  been  the  best  paper  presented  that 
semester. 

I  find  myself  smiling  as  I  write  this  —  I  was  too 
happy  that  night  to  eat. 

The  Sunday  trips  we  made  up  the  Neckar:  each 
morning  early  we  would  take  the  train  and  ride  to 
where  we  had  walked  the  Sunday  previous;  then  we 
would  tramp  as  far  as  we  could,  —  meaning  until 
dark,  —  have  lunch  at  some  untouristed  inn  along  the 
road,  or  perhaps  eat  a  picnic  lunch  of  our  own  in  some 
old  castle  ruin,  and  then  ride  home.  Oh,  those  Sun- 
days! I  tell  you  no  two  people  in  all  this  world,  since 
people  were,  have  ever  had  one  day  like  those  Sun- 
days. And  we  had  them  almost  every  week.  It  would 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  47 

have  been  worth  going  to  Germany  for  just  one  of 
those  days. 

There  was  the  gay,  glad  party  that  the  Economic 
students  gave,  out  in  Handschusheim  at  the  "zum 
Bachlenz";  first,  the  banquet,  with  a  big  roomful  of 
jovial  young  Germans;  then  the  play,  in  which  Carl 
and  I  both  took  part.  Carl  appeared  in  a  mixture 
of  his  Idaho  outfit  and  a  German  peasant's  costume, 
beating  a  large  drum.  He  represented  "Materialin- 
dex,"  and  called  out  loudly,  "Ich  bitte  mich  nicht 
zu  vergessen.  Ich  bin  auch  da."  I  was  "Methode," 
which  nobody  wanted  to  claim ;  whereat  I  wept.  I  am 
looking  at  the  flashlight  picture  of  us  all  at  this  mo- 
ment. Then  came  the  dancing,  and  then  at  about 
four  o'clock  the  walk  home  in  the  moonlight,  by  the 
old  castle  ruin  in  Handschusheim,  singing  the  German 
student-songs. 

There  was  Carnival  season,  with  its  masque  balls 
and  frivolity,  and  Faschings  Dienstag,  when  Haupt- 
strasse  was  given  over  to  merriment  all  afternoon, 
every  one  trailing  up  and  down  the  middle  of  the 
street  masked,  and  in  fantastic  costume,  throwing 
confetti  and  tooting  horns,  Carl  and  I  tooting  with 
the  rest. 

As  time  went  on,  we  came  to  have  one  little  group 
of  nine  students  whom  we  were  with  more  than  any 
others.  As  each  of  the  men  took  his  degree,  he  gave  a 
party  to  the  rest  of  us  to  celebrate  it,  every  one  try- 
ing to  outdo  the  other  in  fun.  Besides  these  most  im- 
portant degree  celebrations,  there  were  less  dazzling 
affairs,  such  as  birthday  parties,  dinners,  or  afternoon 


48  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

coffee  in  honor  of  visiting  German  parents,  or  merely 
meeting  together  in  our  favorite  caf6  after  a  Socialist 
lecture  or  a  Max  Reger  concert.  In  addition  to  such 
functions,  Carl  and  I  had  our  Wednesday  night  spree 
just  by  ourselves,  when  every  week  we  met  after  his 
seminar.  Our  budget  allowed  just  twelve  and  a  half 
cents  an  evening  for  both  of  us.  I  put  up  a  supper  at 
home,  and  in  good  weather  we  ate  down  by  the  river 
or  in  some  park.  When  it  rained  and  was  cold,  we  sat 
in  a  corner  of  the  third-class  waiting-room  by  the 
stove,  watching  the  people  coming  and  going  in  the 
station.  Then,  for  dessert,  we  went  every  Wednesday 
to  Xante's  Conditorei,  where,  for  two  and  a  half 
cents  apiece,  we  got  a  large  slice  of  a  special  brand  of 
the  most  divine  cake  ever  baked.  Then,  for  two  and 
a  half  cents,  we  saw  the  movies  —  at  a  reduced  rate 
because  we  presented  a  certain  number  of  street-car 
transfers  along  with  the  cash,  and  then  had  to  sit  in 
the  first  three  rows.  But  you  see,  we  used  to  remark, 
we  have  to  sit  so  far  away  at  the  opera,  it's  good  to 
get  up  close  at  something !  Those  were  real  movies  — 
no  danger  of  running  into  a  night-long  Robert  W. 
Chambers  scenario.  It  was  in  the  days  before  such 
developments.  Then  across  the  street  was  an  "Auto- 
mat," and  there,  for  a  cent  and  a  quarter  apiece,  we 
could  hold  a  glass  under  a  little  spigot,  press  a  button, 
and  get  —  refreshments.  Then  we  walked  home. 

O  Heidelberg  —  I  love  your  every  tree,  every  stone, 
every  blade  of  grass ! 

But  at  last  our  year  came  to  an  end.  We  left  the 
town  in  a  bower  of  fruit-blossoms,  as  we  had  found  it. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  49 

Our  dear,  most  faithful  friends,  the  Kecks,  gave  us 
a  farewell  luncheon;  and  with  babies,  bundles,  and 
baggage,  we  were  off. 

Heidelberg  was  the  only  spot  I  ever  wept  at  leav- 
ing. I  loved  it  then,  and  I  love  it  now,  as  I  love  no 
other  place  on  earth  and  Carl  felt  the  same  way.  We 
were  mournful,  indeed,  as  that  train  pulled  out. 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  next  two  weeks  were  filled  with  vicissitudes.  The 
idea  was  for  Carl  to  settle  the  little  family  in  some 
rural  bit  of  Germany,  while  he  did  research  work  in 
the  industrial  section  of  Essen,  and  thereabouts,  com- 
ing home  week-ends.  We  stopped  off  first  at  Bonn. 
Carl  spent  several  days  searching  up  and  down  the 
Rhine  and  through  the  Moselle  country  for  a  place 
that  would  do,  which  meant  a  place  we  could  afford 
that  was  fit  and  suitable  for  the  babies.  There  was 
nothing.  The  report  always  was:  pensions  all  expen- 
sive, and  automobiles  touring  by  at  a  mile  a  minute 
where  the  children  would  be  playing. 

On  a  wild  impulse  we  moved  up  to  Clive,  on  the 
Dutch  border.  After  Carl  went  in  search  of  a  pension, 
it  started  to  drizzle.  The  boys,  baggage,  and  I  found 
the  only  nearby  place  of  shelter  in  a  stone-cutter's  in- 
closure,  filled  with  new  and  ornate  tombstones.  What 
was  my  impecunious  horror,  when  I  heard  a  small 
crash  and  discovered  that  Jim  had  dislocated  a  loose 
figure  of  Christ  (unconsciously  Cubist  in  execution) 
from  the  top  of  a  tombstone!  Eight  marks  charges! 
the  cost  of  sixteen  Heidelberg  sprees.  On  his  return, 
Carl  reported  two  pensions,  one  quarantined  for 
diphtheria,  one  for  scarlet  fever.  We  slept  over  a  beer- 
hall,  with  such  a  racket  going  on  all  night  as  never 
was;  and  next  morning  took  the  first  train  out  —  this 
time  for  Dusseldorf. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  51 

It  is  a  trifle  momentous,  traveling  with  two  babies 
around  a  country  you  know  nothing  about,  and  can 
find  no  one  to  enlighten  you.  At  Dusseldorf  Carl 
searched  through  the  town  and  suburbs  for  a  spot 
to  settle  us  in,  getting  more  and  more  depressed  at 
the  thought  of  leaving  us  anywhere.  That  Freiburg 
summer  had  seared  us  both  deep,  and  each  of  us 
dreaded  another  separation  more  than  either  let  the 
other  know.  And  then,  one  night,  after  another  fruit- 
less search,  Carl  came  home  and  informed  me  that  the 
whole  scheme  was  off.  Instead  of  doing  his  research 
work,  we  would  all  go  to  Munich,  and  he  would  take 
an  unexpected  semester  there,  working  with  Brentano. 

What  rejoicings,  oh,  what  rejoicings!  As  Carl  re- 
marked, it  may  be  that  "He  travels  fastest  who  trav- 
els alone";  but  speed  was  not  the  only  thing  he  was 
after.  So  the  next  day,  babies,  bundles,  baggage, 
and  parents  went  down  the  Rhine,  almost  through 
Heidelberg,  to  Munich,  with  such  joy  and  content- 
ment in  our  hearts  as  we  could  not  describe.  All  those 
days  of  unhappy  searchings  Carl  had  been  through 
must  have  sunk  deep,  for  in  his  last  days  of  fever 
he  would  tell  me  of  a  form  of  delirium  in  which  he 
searched  again,  with  a  heart  of  lead,  for  a  place  to 
leave  the  babies  and  me. 

I  remember  our  first  night  in  Munich.  We  arrived 
about  supper-time,  hunted  up  a  cheap  hotel  as  usual, 
near  the  station,  fed  the  babies,  and  started  to  pre- 
pare for  their  retirement.  This  process  in  hotels  was 
always  effected  by  taking  out  two  bureau-drawers 
and  making  a  bed  of  each.  While  we  were  busy  over 


p  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

this,  the  boys  were  busy  over  —  just  busy.  This  time 
they  both  crawled  up  into  a  large  clothes-press  that 
stood  in  our  room,  when,  crash !  bang!  —  there  lay  the 
clothes-press,  front  down,  on  the  floor,  boys  inside  it. 
Such  a  commotion  —  hollerings  and  squallings  from 
the  internals  of  the  clothes-press,  agitated  scurryings 
from  all  directions  of  the  hotel-keeper,  his  wife,  wait- 
ers, and  chambermaids.  All  together,  we  managed  to 
stand  the  clothes-press  once  more  against  the  wall, 
and  to  extricate  two  sobered  young  ones,  the  only 
damage  being  two  clothes-press  doors  banged  off  their 
hinges. 

Munich  is  second  in  my  heart  to  Heidelberg.  Carl 
worked  hardest  of  all  there,  hardly  ever  going  out 
nights;  but  we  never  got  over  the  feeling  that  our 
being  there  together  was  a  sort  of  gift  we  had  made 
ourselves,  and  we  were  ever  grateful.  And  then  Carl 
did  so  remarkably  well  in  the  University.  A  report, 
for  instance,  which  he  read  before  Brentano's  seminar 
was  published  by  the  University.  Our  relations  with 
Brentano  always  stood  out  as  one  of  the  high  memo- 
ries of  Germany.  After  Carl's  report  in  Brentano's 
class,  that  lovable  idol  of  the  German  students  called 
him  to  his  desk  and  had  a  long  talk,  which  ended  by 
his  asking  us  both  to  tea  at  his  house  the  following 
day.  The  excitement  of  our  pension  over  that!  We 
were  looked  upon  as  the  anointed  of  the  Lord.  We 
were  really  a  bit  overawed,  ourselves.  We  discussed 
neckties,  and  brushed  and  cleaned,  and  smelled  con- 
siderably of  gasoline  as  we  strutted  forth,  too  proud 
to  tell,  because  we  were  to  have  t^a  with  Brentano! 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  ^3 

I  can  see  the  street  their  house  was  on,  their  front 
door;  I  can  feel  again  the  little  catch  in  our  breaths 
as  we  rang  the  bell.  Then  the  charming  warmth  and 
color  of  that  Italian  home,  the  charming  warmth  and 
hospitality  of  that  white-haired  professor  and  his 
gracious,  kindly  wife.  There  were  just  ourselves  there; 
and  what  a  momentous  time  it  was  to  the  little 
Parkers!  Carl  was  simply  radiating  joy,  and  in  the 
way  he  always  had  when  especially  pleased,  would 
give  a  sudden  beam  from  ear  to  ear,  and  a  wink  at 
me  when  no  one  else  was  looking. 

Not  long  after  that  we  were  invited  for  dinner,  and 
again  for  tea,  this  time,  according  to  orders,  bringing 
the  sons.  They  both  fell  into  an  Italian  fountain  in  the 
rear  garden  as  soon  as  we  went  in  for  refreshments. 
By  my  desk  now  is  hanging  a  photograph  we  have 
prized  as  one  of  our  great  treasures.  Below  it  is  writ- 
ten: "Mrs.  and  Mr,  Parker,  zur  freundlichen  Erin- 
nerrung  —  Lujio  Brentano."  Professor  Bonn,  another 
of  Carl's  professors  at  the  University,  and  his  wife, 
were  kindness  itself  to  us.  Then  there  was  Peter,  dear 
old  Peter,  the  Austrian  student  at  our  pension,  who 
took  us  everywhere,  brought  us  gifts,  and  adored  the 
babies  until  he  almost  spoiled  them. 

From  Munich  we  went  direct  to  England.  Vicissi- 
tudes again  in  finding  a  cheap  and  fit  place  that  would 
do  for  children  to  settle  in.  After  ever-hopeful  wan- 
derings, we  finally  stumbled  upon  Swanage  in  Dorset. 
That  was  a  love  of  a  place  on  the  English  Channel, 
where  we  had  two  rooms  with  the  Mebers  in  their 
funny  little  brick  house,  the  "Netto."  Simple  folk 


54  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

they  were:  Mr.  Meber  a  retired  sailor,  the  wife  rather 
worn  with  constant  roomers,  one  daughter  a  dress- 
maker, the  other  working  in  the  "knittin*"  shop. 
Charges,  six  dollars  a  week  for  the  family,  which  in- 
cluded cooking  and  serving  our  meals  —  we  bought 
the  food  ourselves. 

Here  Carl  prepared  for  his  Ph.D.  examination,  and 
worked  on  his  thesis  until  it  got  to  the  point  where  he 
needed  the  British  Museum.  Then  he  took  a  room  and 
worked  during  the  week  in  London,  coming  down  to 
us  week-ends.  He  wrote  eager  letters,  for  the  time  had 
come  when  he  longed  to  get  the  preparatory  work 
and  examination  behind  him  and  begin  teaching.  We 
had  an  instructorship  at  the  University  of  California 
waiting  for  us,  and  teaching  was  to  begin  in  January. 
In  one  letter  he  wrote:  "  I  now  feel  like  landing  on  my 
exam,  like  a  Bulgarian;  I  am  that  fierce  to  lay  it  out." 
We  felt  more  than  ever,  in  those  days  of  work  piling 
up  behind  us,  that  we  owned  the  world ;  as  Carl  wrote 
in  another  letter:  "We'll  stick  this  out  [this  being  the 
separation  of  his  last  trip  to  London,  whence  he  was 
to  start  for  Heidelberg  and  his  examination,  with- 
out another  visit  with  us],  for,  Gott  set  dank!  the  time 
is  n't  so  fearful,  fearful  long,  it  is  n't  really,  is  it?  Gee! 
I  'm  glad  I  married  you.  And  I  want  more  babies  and 
more  you,  and  then  the  whole  gang  together  for  about 
ninety- two  years.  But  life  is  so  fine  to  us  and  we  are 
getting  so  much  love  and  big  things  out  of  life!" 

November  i  Carl  left  London  for  Heidelberg.  He 
was  to  take  his  examination  there  December  5,  so  the 
month  of  November  was  a  full  one  for  him.  He  stayed 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  55 

with  the  dear  Kecks,  Mother  Keck  pressing  and 
mending  his  clothes,  hovering  over  him  as  if  he  were 
her  own  son.  He  wrote  once:  "To-day  we  had  a  small 
leg  of  venison  which  I  sneaked  in  last  night.  Every 
time  I  note  that  I  burn  three  quarters  of  a  lampful  of 
oil  a  day  among  the  other  things  I  cost  them,  it  makes 
me  feel  like  buying  out  a  whole  Conditorei." 

I  lived  for  those  daily  letters  telling  of  his  progress. 
Once  he  wrote:  "Just  saw  Fleiner  [Professor  in  Law] 
and  he  was  fine,  but  I  must  get  his  Volkerrecht  cold. 
It  is  fine  reading,  and  is  mighty  good  and  interesting 
every  word,  and  also  stuff  which  a  man  ought  to 
know.  This  is  the  last  man  to  see.  From  now  on,  it  is 
only  to  study,  and  I  am  tickled.  I  do  really  like  to 
study."  A  few  days  later  he  wrote:  "It  is  just  plain 
sit  and  absorb  these  days.  Some  day  I  will  explain 
how  tough  it  is  to  learn  an  entire  law  subject  in  five 
days  in  a  strange  tongue." 

And  then,  on  the  night  of  December  5,  came  the 
telegram  of  success  to  "Frau  Dr.  Parker."  We  both 
knew  he  would  pass,  but  neither  of  us  was  prepared 
for  the  verdict  of  "Summa  cum  laude,''  the  highest 
accomplishment  possible.  I  went  up  and  down  the 
main  street  of  little  Swanage,  announcing  the  tidings 
right  and  left.  The  community  all  knew  that  Carl  was 
in  Germany  to  take  some  kind  of  an  examination, 
though  it  all  seemed  rather  unexplainable.  Yet  they 
rejoiced  with  me,  —  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  can- 
dlestick-maker, —  without  having  the  least  idea  what 
they  were  rejoicing  about.  Mrs.  Meber  tore  up  and 
down  Osborne  Road  to  have  the  fun  of  telling  the 


56  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

immediate  neighbors,  all  of  whom  were  utterly  at  a 
loss  to  know  what  it  meant,  the  truth  being  that  Mrs. 
Meber  herself  was  in  that  same  state.  But  she  had 
somehow  caught  my  excitement,  and  anything  to  tell 
was  scarce  in  Swanage. 

So  the  little  family  that  fared  forth  from  Oakland, 
California,  that  February  i ,  for  one  year  at  Harvard 
had  ended  thus  —  almost  four  years  later  a  Ph.D. 
summa  cum  laude  from  Heidelberg.  Not  Persia  as  we 
had  planned  it  nine  years  before  —  a  deeper,  finer  life 
than  anything  we  had  dreamed.  We  asked  Professor 
Miller,  after  we  got  back  to  California,  why  in  the 
world  he  had  said  just  "one  year  in  Europe." 

"If  I  had  said  more,  I  was  afraid  it  would  scare 
you  altogether  out  of  ever  starting;  and  I  knew  if  you 
once  got  over  there  and  were  made  of  the  right  stuff, 
you'd  stay  on  for  a  Ph.D." 

On  December  12  Carl  was  to  deliver  one  of  a  series 
of  lectures  in  Munich  for  the  Handelshochschule,  his 
subject  being  "Die  Einwanderungs  und  Siedelungs- 
politik  in  Amerika  (Carleton  Parker,  Privatdocent, 
California-Universitat,  St.  Francisco)."  That  very 
day,  however,  the  Prince  Regent  died,  and  everything 
was  called  off.  We  had  our  glory  —  and  got  our  pay. 
Carl  was  so  tired  from  his  examination,  that  he  did 
not  object  to  foregoing  the  delivery  of  a  German 
address  before  an  audience  of  four  hundred.  It  was 
read  two  weeks  later  by  one  of  the  professors. 

On  December  15  we  had  our  reunion  and  celebra- 
tion of  it  all.  Carl  took  the  Amerika,  second  class,  at 
Hamburg;  the  boys  and  I  at  Southampton,  usheredl 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  57 

thither  from  Swanage  and  put  aboard  the  steamer 
by  our  faithful  Onkel  Keck,  son  of  the  folk  with  whom 
Carl  had  stayed  in  Heidelberg,  who  came  all  the  way 
from  London  for  that  purpose.  It  was  not  such  a 
brash  Herr  Doktor  that  we  found,  after  all:  the 
Channel  had  begun  to  tell  on  him,  as  it  were,  and 
while  it  was  plain  that  he  loved  us.  It  was  also  plain 
that  he  did  not  love  the  water.  So  we  gave  him  his 
six  days  off,  and  he  lay  anguish-eyed  in  a  steamer- 
chair  while  I  covered  fifty-seven  miles  a  day,  tearing 
after  two  sons  who  were  far  more  filled  with  Wander- 
lust than  they  had  been  three  years  before.  When  our 
dad  did  feel  chipper  again,  he  felt  very  chipper,  and 
our  last  four  days  were  perfect. 

We  landed  In  New  York  on  Christmas  Eve,  in  a 
snowstorm;  paid  the  crushing  sum  of  one  dollar  and 
seventy-five  cents  duty,  —  such  a  jovial  agent  as  in- 
spected our  belongings  I  never  beheld;  he  must  al- 
ready have  had  just  the  Christmas  present  he  most 
wanted,  whatever  it  was.  When  he  heard  that  we 
had  been  in  Heidelberg,  he  and  several  other  offi- 
cials began  a  lusty  rendering  of  ''Old  Heidelberg,"  — 
and  within  an  hour  we  were  speeding  toward  Cali- 
fornia, a  case  of  certified  milk  added  to  our  already 
innumerable  articles  of  luggage.  Christmas  dinner 
we  ate  on  the  train.  How  those  American  dining-car 
prices  floored  us  after  three  years  of  all  we  could  eat 
for  thirty-five  cents! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

We  looked  back  always  on  our  first  semester's  teach- 
ing in  the  University  of  California  as  one  hectic  term. 
We  had  lived  our  own  lives,  found  our  own  joys,  for 
four  years,  and  here  we  were  enveloped  by  old  friends, 
by  relatives,  by  new  friends,  until  we  knew  not  which 
way  to  turn.  In  addition,  Carl  was  swamped  by  cam- 
pus affairs  —  by  students,  many  of  whom  seemed  to 
consider  him  an  oasis  in  a  desert  of  otherwise-to-be- 
deplored,  unhuman  professors.  Every  student  organi- 
zation to  which  he  had  belonged  as  an  undergraduate 
opened  its  arms  to  welcome  him  as  a  faculty  member; 
we  chaperoned  student  parties  till  we  heard  rag-time 
in  our  sleep.  From  January  i  to  May  i6,  we  had  four 
nights  alone  together.  You  can  know  we  were  desper- 
ate. Carl  used  to  say:  "We  may  have  to  make  it 
Persia  yet." 

The  red-letter  event  of  that  term  was  when,  after 
about  two  months  of  teaching,  President  Wheeler 
rang  up  one  evening  about  seven,  —  one  of  the  four 
evenings,  as  it  happened,  we  were  at  home  together, 
—  and  said:  "I  thought  I  should  like  the  pleasure  of 
telling  you  personally,  though  you  will  receive  official 
notice  in  the  morning,  that  you  have  been  made  an 
assistant  professor.  We  expected  you  to  make  good, 
but  we  did  not  expect  you  to  make  good  to  such  a 
degree  quite  so  soon." 

Again  an  occasion  for  a  spree!  We  tore  out  hatlesg 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  59 

across  the  campus,  nearly  demolishing  the  head  of 
the  College  of  Commerce  as  we  rounded  the  Library. 
He  must  know  the  excitement.  He  was  pleased.  He 
slipped  his  hand  into  his  pocket  saying,  "  I  must  have 
a  hand  in  this  celebration."  And  with  a  royal  gesture, 
as  who  should  say,  "What  matter  the  costs!"  slipped 
a  dime  into  Carl's  hand.  "Spend  it  all  to-night." 

Thus  we  were  started  on  our  assistant  professor- 
ship. But  always  before  and  always  after,  to  the  stu- 
dents Carl  was  just  "Doc." 

I  remember  a  story  he  told  of  how  his  chief  stopped 
him  one  afternoon  at  the  north  gate  to  the  university, 
and  said  he  was  discouraged  and  distressed.  Carl  was 
getting  the  reputation  of  being  popular  with  the 
students,  and  that  would  never  do.  "I  don't  wish  to 
hear  more  of  such  rumors."  Just  then  the  remnants 
of  the  internals  of  a  Ford,  hung  together  with  picture 
wire  and  painted  white,  whizzed  around  the  corner. 
Two  slouching,  hard-working  "studes"  caught  sight 
of  Carl,  reared  up  the  car,  and  called,"  Hi,  Doc,  come 
on  in!"  Then  they  beheld  the  Head  of  the  Depart- 
ment, hastily  pressed  some  lever,  and  went  hurrying 
on.  To  the  Head  it  was  evidence  first-hand.  He  shook 
his  head  and  went  his  way. 

Carl  was  popular  with  the  students,  and  it  is  true 
that  he  was  too  much  so.  It  was  not  long  before  he 
discovered  that  he  was  drawing  unto  himself  the  all- 
too-lightly-handled  "college  bum,"  and  he  rebelled. 
Harvard  and  Germany  had  given  him  too  high  an 
idea  of  scholarship  to  have  even  a  traditional  univer- 
sity patience  with  the  student  who,  in  the  University 


6o  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

of  California  jargon,  was  "looking  for  a  meal."  He 
was  petitioned  by  twelve  students  of  the  College  of 
Agriculture  to  give  a  course  in  the  Economics  of 
Agriculture,  and  they  guaranteed  him  twenty-five 
students.  One  hundred  and  thirty  enrolled,  and  as 
Carl  surveyed  the  assortment  below  him,  he  realized 
that  a  good  half  of  them  did  not  know  and  did  not 
want  to  know  a  pear  tree  from  a  tractor.  He  stiffened 
his  upper  lip,  stiffened  his  examinations,  and  cinched 
forty  of  the  class.  There  should  be  some  Latin  saying 
that  would  just  fit  such  a  case,  but  I  do  not  know  it. 

It  would  start,  "Exit ,"  and  the  exit  would  refer 

to  the  exit  of  the  loafer  in  large  numbers  from  Carl's 
courses  and  the  exit  from  the  heart  of  the  loafer  of  the 
absorbing  love  he  had  held  for  Carl.  His  troubles  were 
largely  over.  Someone  else  could  care  for  the  maimed, 
the  halt,  and  the  blind. 

It  was  about  this  time,  too,  that  Carl  got  into 
difficulties  with  the  intrenched  powers  on  the  campus. 
He  had  what  has  been  referred  to  as  "a  passion  for 
justice."  Daily  the  injustice  of  campus  organization 
grew  on  him ;  he  saw  democracy  held  high  as  an  ideal 
—  lip-homage  only.  Student  affairs  were  run  by  an 
autocracy  which  had  nothing  to  justify  it  except  its 
supporters'  claim  of  "efficiency."  He  had  little  love 
for  that  word  —  it  is  usually  bought  at  too  great  a 
cost.  That  year,  as  usual,  he  had  a  small  seminar  of 
carefully  picked  students.  He  got  them  to  open  their 
eyes  to  conditions  as  they  were.  When  they  ceased  to 
accept  those  conditions  just  because  they  were,  they, 
too,  felt  the  inequality,  the  farce,  of  a  democratic 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  61 

institution  run  on  such  autocratic  lines.  After  seminar 
hours  the  group  would  foregather  at  our  house  to 
plot  as  to  ways  and  means.  The  editor  of  the  campus 
daily  saw  their  point  of  view  —  I  am  not  sure  now  that 
he  was  not  a  member  of  the  seminar. 

A  slow  campaign  of  education  followed.  Intrenched 
powers  became  outraged.  Fraternities  that  had  in- 
vited Carl  almost  weekly  to  lunch,  now  "could  n't  see 
him."  One  or  two  influential  alumnae,  who  had  some- 
thing to  gain  from  the  established  order,  took  up  the 
fight.  Soon  we  had  a  "warning"  from  one  of  the  Re- 
gents that  Carl's  efforts  on  behalf  of  "democracy" 
were  unwelcome.  But  within  a  year  the  entire  organ- 
ization of  campus  politics  was  altered,  and  now  there 
probably  is  not  a  student  who  would  not  feel  out- 
raged at  the  suggestion  of  a  return  to  the  old  system. 

Perhaps  here  is  where  I  can  dwell  for  a  moment  on 
Carl's  particular  brand  of  democracy.  I  see  so  much 
of  other  kinds.  He  was  what  I  should  call  an  utterly 
unconscious  democrat.  He  never  framed  in  his  own 
mind  any  theory  of  "the  brotherhood  of  man"  —  he 
just  lived  it,  without  ever  thinking  of  it  as  something 
that  needed  expression  in  words.  I  never  heard  him 
use  the  term.  To  him  the  Individual  was  everything 
—  by  that  I  mean  that  every  relation  he  had  was  on 
a  personal  basis.  He  could  not  go  into  a  shop  to  buy 
a  necktie  hurriedly,  without  passing  a  word  with  the 
clerk;  when  he  paid  his  fare  on  the  street  car,  there 
was  a  moment's  conversation  with  the  conductor; 
when  we  had  ice-cream  of  an  evening,  he  asked  the 
waitress  what  was  the  best  thing  on  in  the  movies. 


62  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

When  we  left  Oakland  for  Harvard,  the  partially 
toothless  maid  we  had  sobbed  that  "Mr.  Parker  had 
been  more  like  a  brother  to  her!" 

One  of  the  phases  of  his  death  which  struck  home 
the  hardest  was  the  concern  and  sorrow  the  small 
tradespeople  showed  —  the  cobbler,  the  plumber,  the 
drug-store  clerk.  You  hear  men  say:  "I  often  find  it 
interesting  to  talk  to  working-people  and  get  their 
view-point."  Such  an  attitude  was  absolutely  foreign 
to  Carl.  He  talked  to  "working-people"  because  he 
talked  to  everybody  as  he  went  along  his  joyous  way. 
At  a  track  meet  or  football  game,  he  was  on  intimate 
terms  with  every  one  within  a  conversational  radius. 
Our  wealthy  friends  would  tell  us  he  ruined  their 
chauflfeurs — they  got  so  that  they  did  n't  know  their 
places.  As  likely  as  not,  he  would  jolt  some  constrained 
bank  president  by  engaging  him  in  genial  conversa- 
tion without  an  introduction;  at  a  formal  dinner  he 
would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  have  a  word  or  two 
with  the  butler  when  he  passed  the  cracked  crab,  al- 
though at  times  the  butlers  seemed  somewhat  pained 
thereby.  Some  of  Carl's  intimate  friends  were  occa- 
sionally annoyed  —  "He  talks  to  everybody."  He  no 
more  could  help  talking  to  everybody  than  he  could 
help  —  liking  pumpkin-pie.  He  was  born  that  way. 
He  had  one  manner  for  every  human  being  —  Presi- 
dent of  the  University,  students,  janitors,  society 
women,  cooks,  small  boys,  judges.  He  never  had  any 
material  thing  to  hand  out,  —  not  even  cigars,  for  he 
did  not  smoke  himself,  —  but,  as  one  friend  expressed 
it;  "he  radiated  generosity." 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  63 

Heidelberg  gives  one  year  after  passing  the  exami- 
nation to  get  the  doctor's  thesis  in  final  form  for  pub- 
lication. The  subject  of  Carl's  thesis  was  "The  Labor 
Policy  of  the  American  Trust."  His  first  summer 
vacation  after  our  return  to  Berkeley,  he  went  on  to 
Wisconsin,  chiefly  to  see  Commons,  and  then  to 
Chicago,  to  study  the  stockyards  at  first-hand,  and 
the  steel  industry.  He  wrote:  "Have  just  seen  Com- 
mons, who  was  fine.  He  said:  'Send  me  as  soon  as 
possible  the  outline  of  your  thesis  and  I  will  pass  upon 
it  according  to  my  lights.'  .  .  .  He  is  very  interested 
in  one  of  my  principal  subdivisions,  i.e.  'Technique 
and  Unionism,'  or  'Technique  and  Labor.'  Believes 
it  is  a  big  new  consideration."  Again  he  wrote:  "I 
have  just  finished  working  through  a  book  on  '  Immi- 
gration '  by  Professor  Fairchild  of  Yale,  —  437  pages 
published  three  weeks  ago,  —  lent  me  by  Professor 
Ross.  It  is  the  very  book  I  have  been  looking  for  and 
is  superb.  I  can't  get  over  how  stimulating  this  looking 
in  on  a  group  of  University  men  has  been.  It  in  itself 
is  worth  the  trip.  I  feel  sure  of  my  field  of  work;  that 
I  am  not  going  off  in  unfruitful  directions ;  that  I  am 
keeping  up  with  the  wagon.  I  am  now  set  on  finishing 
my  book  right  away  —  want  it  out  within  a  year  from 
December."  From  Chicago  he  wrote:  "Am  here  with 
the  reek  of  the  stockyards  in  my  nose,  and  just  four 
blocks  from  them.  Here  lived,  in  this  house,  Upton 
Sinclair  when  he  wrote  'The  Jungle.'"  And  Mary 
McDowell,  at  the  University  Settlement  where  he 
was  staying,  told  a  friend  of  ours  since  Carl's  death 
about  how  he  came  to  the  table  that  first  night  and 


64  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

no  one  paid  much  attention  to  him  —  just  some 
young  Westerner  nosing  about.  But  by  the  end  of  the 
meal  he  had  the  whole  group  leaning  elbows  on  the 
table,  listening  to  everything  he  had  to  say;  and  she 
added,  "Every  one  of  us  loved  him  from  then  on." 

He  wrote,  after  visiting  Swift's  plant,  of  "seeing 
illustrations  for  all  the  lectures  on  technique  I  have 
given,  and  Gee!  it  felt  good.  [I  could  not  quote  him 
honestly  and  leave  out  his  "gees"]  to  actually  look 
at  things  being  done  the  way  one  has  orated  about 
*em  being  done.  The  thing  for  me  to  do  here  is  to  see, 
and  see  the  things  I  'm  going  to  write  into  my  thesis. 
I  want  to  spend  a  week,  if  I  can,  digging  into  the 
steel  industry.  With  my  fine  information  about  the 
ore  [he  had  just  acquired  that],  I  am  anxious  to  fill 
out  my  knowledge  of  the  operation  of  smelting  and 
making  steel.  Then  I  can  orate  industrial  dope." 
Later:  "This  morning  I  called  on  the  Vice-President 
of  the  Illinois  Steel  Company,  on  the  Treasurer  of 
Armour  &  Co.,  and  lunched  with  Mr.  Crane  of  Crane 
Co.— Ahem!" 

The  time  we  had  when  it  came  to  the  actual  print- 
ing of  the  thesis!  It  had  to  be  finished  by  a  certain 
day,  in  order  to  make  a  certain  steamer,  to  reach 
Heidelberg  when  promised.  I  got  in  a  corner  of  a 
printing-office  and  read  proof  just  as  fast  as  it  came 
off  the  press,  while  Carl  worked  at  home,  under  you 
can  guess  what  pressure,  to  complete  his  manuscript 
—  tearing  down  with  new  batches  for  me  to  get 
in  shape  for  the  type-setter,  and  then  racing  home  to 
do  more  writing.    We  finished  the  thesis  about  one 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  65 

o'clock  one  morning,  proof-reading  and  all;  and  the 
next  day  —  or  that  same  day,  later  —  war  was  de- 
clared. Which  meant  just  this  —  that  the  University 
of  Heidelberg  sent  word  that  it  would  not  be  safe  for 
Carl  to  send  over  his  thesis,  —  there  were  about 
three  or  four  hundred  copies  to  go,  according  to  Ger- 
man University  regulations,  —  until  the  situation  had 
quieted  down  somewhat.  The  result  was  that  those 
three  or  four  hundred  copies  lay  stacked  up  in  the 
printing-office  for  three  or  four  years,  until  at  last 
Carl  decided  it  was  not  a  very  good  thesis  anyway, 
and  he  did  n't  want  any  one  to  see  it,  and  he  would 
write  another  brand-new  one  when  peace  was  de- 
clared and  it  could  get  safely  to  its  destination.  So  he 
told  the  printer-man  to  do  away  with  the  whole  batch. 
This  meant  that  we  were  out  about  a  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  oh,  luckless  thought!  —  a  small  fortune 
to  the  young  Parkers.  So  though  in  a  way  the  thesis 
as  it  stands  was  not  meant  for  publication,  I  shall  risk 
quoting  from  Part  One,  "The  Problem,"  so  that  at 
least  his  general  approach  can  be  gathered.  Remem- 
ber, the  title  was  "The  Labor  Policy  of  the  American 
Trust." 

"When  the  most  astute  critic  of  American  labor 
conditions  has  said,  'While  immigration  continues  in 
great  volume,  class  lines  will  be  forming  and  reform- 
ing, weak  and  instable.  To  prohibit  or  greatly  restrict 
immigration  would  bring  forth  class  conflict  within  a 
generation,'  what  does  it  mean? 

"President  Woodrow  Wilson  in  a  statement  of  his 
fundamental  beliefs  has  said:  'Why  are  we  in  the 


66  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

presence,  why  are  we  at  the  threshold,  of  a  revolu- 
tion? .  .  .  Don't  you  know  that  some  man  with  elo- 
quent tongue,  without  conscience,  who  did  not  care 
for  the  nation,  could  put  this  whole  country  into  a 
flame?  Don't  you  know  that  this  country,  from  one 
end  to  the  other,  believes  that  something  is  wrong? 
What  an  opportunity  it  would  be  for  some  man  with- 
out conscience  to  spring  up  and  say:  "This  is  the  way; 
follow  me"  —  and  lead  in  paths  of  destruction!' 
What  does  it  mean? 

"The  problem  of  the  social  unrest  must  seek  for  its 
source  in  all  three  classes  of  society!  Two  classes  are 
employer  and  employee,  the  third  is  the  great  middle 
class,  looking  on.  What  is  the  relationship  between 
the  dominating  employing  figure  in  American  indus- 
trial life  and  the  men  who  work? 

"A  nation-wide  antagonism  to  trade-unions,  to  the 
idea  of  collective  bargaining  between  men  and  em- 
ployer, cannot  spring  from  a  temperamental  aversion 
of  a  mere  individual,  however  powerful,  be  he  Car- 
negie, Parry,  or  Post,  or  from  the  common  opinion 
in  a  group  such  as  the  so-called  Beef  Trust,  or  the 
directorate  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation. 
Such  a  hostility,  characterizing  as  it  does  one  of  the 
vitally  important  relationships  in  industrial  produc- 
tion, must  seek  its  reason-to-be  in  economic  causes. 
Profits,  market,  financing,  are  placed  in  certain  jeop- 
ardy by  such  a  labor  policy,  and  this  risk  is  not  con- 
tinued, generation  after  generation,  as  a  casual  indul- 
gence in  temper.  Deep  below  the  strong  charges 
against  the  unions  of  narrow  self-interest  and  un- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  67 

American  limitation  of  output,  dressed  by  the  Citi- 
zens' Alliance  in  the  language  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  lies  a  quiet  economic  reason  for  the 
hostility.  Just  as  slavery  was  about  to  go  because  it 
did  not  pay,  and  America  stopped  building  a  mer- 
chant marine  because  it  was  cheaper  to  hire  England 
to  transport  American  goods,  so  the  American  Trust, 
as  soon  as  it  had  power,  abolished  the  American  trade- 
union  because  it  found  it  costly.  What  then  are  these 
economic  causes  which  account  for  the  hostility? 

"What  did  the  union  stand  in  the  way  of?  What 
conditions  did  the  trust  desire  to  establish  with  which 
the  union  would  interfere?  Or  did  a  labor  condition 
arise  which  allowed  the  employer  to  wreck  the  union 
with  such  ease,  that  he  turned  aside  for  a  moment  to 
do  it,  to  commit  an  act  desirable  only  if  its  perform- 
ance cost  little  danger  or  money? 

"The  answer  can  be  found  only  after  an  analysis 
of  certain  factors  in  industrial  production.  These  are 
three:  — 

"  (a)  The  control  of  industrial  production.  Not  only, 
in  whose  hands  has  industrial  capitalism  for  the  mo- 
ment fallen,  but  in  what  direction  does  the  evolution 
of  control  tend? 

"  (b)  The  technique  of  industrial  production.  Tech- 
nique, at  times,  instead  of  being  a  servant,  determines 
by  its  own  characteristics  the  character  of  the  labor 
and  the  geographical  location  of  the  industry,  and 
even  destroys  the  danger  of  competition,  if  the 
machinery  demanded  by  it  asks  for  a  bigger  capital 
investment  than  a  raiding  competitor  will  risk» 


68  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

"(c)  The  labor  market.  The  labor  market  can  be 
stationary  as  in  England,  can  diminish  as  in  Ireland, 
or  increase  as  in  New  England. 

*'  If  the  character  of  these  three  factors  be  studied, 
trust  hostility  to  American  labor-unions  can  be  ex- 
plained in  terms  of  economic  measure.  One  national 
characteristic,  however,  must  be  taken  for  granted. 
That  is  the  commercialized  business  morality  which 
guides  American  economic  life.  The  responsibility  for 
the  moral  or  social  effect  of  an  act  is  so  rarely  a  con- 
sideration in  a  decision,  that  it  can  be  here  neglected 
without  error.  It  is  not  a  factor." 

At  the  close  of  his  investigation,  he  took  his  first 
vacation  in  five  years  —  a  canoe- trip  up  the  Brul6 
with  Hal  Bradley.  That  was  one  of  our  dreams  that 
could  never  come  true  —  a  canoe-trip  together.  We 
almost  bought  the  canoe  at  the  Exposition  —  we 
looked  holes  through  the  one  we  wanted.  Our  trip  was 
planned  to  the  remotest  detail.  We  never  did  come 
into  our  own  in  the  matter  of  our  vacations,  although 
no  two  people  could  have  more  fun  in  the  woods  than 
we.  But  the  combination  of  small  children  and  no 
money  and  new  babies  and  work  —  We  figured  that 
in  three  more  years  we  could  be  sure  of  at  least  one 
wonderful  trip  a  year.  Anyway,  we  had  the  joy  of  our 
plannings. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  second  term  in  California  had  just  got  well  under 
way  when  Carl  was  offered  the  position  of  Executive 
Secretary  in  the  State  Immigration  and  Housing 
Commission  of  California.  I  remember  so  well  the 
night  he  came  home  about  midnight  and  told  me. 
I  am  afraid  the  financial  end  would  have  determined 
us,  even  if  the  work  itself  had  small  appeal  —  which, 
however,  was  not  the  case.  The  salary  offered  was 
$4000.  We  were  getting  $1500  at  the  University.  We 
were  $2000  in  debt  from  our  European  trip,  and  saw 
no  earthly  chance  of  ever  paying  it  out  of  our  Univer- 
sity salary.  We  figured  that  we  could  be  square  with 
the  world  in  one  year  on  a  ^^4000  salary,  and  then  need 
never  be  swayed  by  financial  considerations  again. 
So  Carl  accepted  the  new  job.  It  was  the  wise  thing 
to  do  anyway,  as  matters  turned  out.  It  threw  him 
into  direct  contact  for  the  first  time  with  the  migra- 
tory laborer  and  the  I.W.W.  It  gave  him  his  first  bent 
in  the  direction  of  labor-psychology,  which  was  to 
become  his  intellectual  passion,  and  he  was  fired  with 
a  zeal  that  never  left  him,  to  see  that  there  should  be 
less  unhappiness  and  inequality  in  the  world. 

The  concrete  result  of  Carl's  work  with  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  was  the  clean-up  of  labor  camps 
all  over  California.  From  unsanitary,  fly-ridden,  dirty 
makeshifts  were  developed  ordered  sanitary  housing 
accommodations,  designed  and  executed  by  experts 


70  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

in  their  fields.  Also  he  awakened,  through  countless 
talks  up  and  down  the  State,  some  understanding  of 
the  I.W.W.  and  his  problem;  although,  judging  from 
the  newspapers  nowadays,  his  work  would  seem  to 
have  been  almost  forgotten.  As  the  phrase  went, 
"Carleton  Parker  put  the  migratory  on  the  map." 

I  think  of  the  Wheatland  Hop-Fields  riot,  or  the 
Ford  and  Suhr  case,  which  Carl  was  appointed  to 
investigate  for  the  Federal  government,  as  the  dra- 
matic incident  which  focused  his  attention  on  the 
need  of  a  deeper  approach  to  a  sound  understanding 
of  labor  and  its  problems,  and  which,  in  turn,  justi- 
fied Mr.  Bru^re  in  stating  in  the  "New  Republic": 
"Parker  was  the  first  of  bur  Economists,  not  only  to 
analyse  the  psychology  of  labor  and  especially  of  cas- 
ual labor,  but  also  to  make  his  analysis  the  basis  for 
an  applied  technique  of  industrial  and  social  recon- 
struction." Also,  that  was  the  occasion  of  his  concrete 
introduction  to  the  I.W.W.  He  wrote  an  account  of 
it,  later,  for  the  "Survey,"  and  an  article  on  "The 
California  Casual  and  His  Revolt"  for  the  "Quarterly 
Journal  of  Economics,"  in  November,  191 5. 

It  is  all  interesting  enough,  I  feel,  to  warrant  going 
into  some  detail. 

The  setting  of  the  riot  is  best  given  in  the  article 
above  referred  to,  "The  California  Casual  and  His 
Revolt." 

"The  story  of  the  Wheatland  hop-pickers'  riot  is 
as  simple  as  the  facts  of  it  are  new  and  naive  in  strike 
histories.  Twenty-eight  hundred  pickers  were  camped 
on  a  treeless  hill  which  was  part  of  the ranch, 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  71 

the  largest  single  employer  of  agricultural  labor  in  the 
state.  Some  were  in  tents,  some  in  topless  squares  of 
sacking,  or  with  piles  of  straw.  There  was  no  organi- 
zation for  sanitation,  no  garbage-disposal.  The  tem- 
perature during  the  week  of  the  riot  had  remained 
near  105°,  and  though  the  wells  were  a  mile  from 
where  the  men,  women,  and  children  were  picking, 
and  their  bags  could  not  be  left  for  fear  of  theft  of  the 
hops,  no  water  was  sent  into  the  fields.  A  lemonade 
wagon  appeared  at  the  end  of  the  week,  later  found 
to  be  a  concession  granted  to  a  cousin  of  the  ranch 
owner.  Local  Wheatland  stores  were  forbidden  to  send 
delivery  wagons  to  the  camp  grounds.  It  developed 
in  the  state  investigation  that  the  owner  of  the  ranch 
received  half  of  the  net  profits  earned  by  an  alleged 
independent  grocery  store,  which  had  been  granted 
the  'grocery  concession'  and  was  located  in  the 
centre  of  the  camp  ground.  .  .  . 

"The  pickers  began  coming  to  Wheatland  on  Tues- 
day, and  by  Sunday  the  irritation  over  the  We^e- 
scale,  the  absence  of  water  in  the  fields,  plus  the  per- 
sistent heat  and  the  increasing  indignity  of  the  camp, 
had  resulted  in  mass  meetings,  violent  talk,  and  a 
general  strike. 

"The  ranch  owner,  a  nervous  man,  was  harassed 
by  the  rush  of  work  brought  on  by  the  too  rapidly 
ripening  hops,  and  indignant  at  the  jeers  and  catcalls 
which  greeted  his  appearance  near  the  meetings  of 
the  pickers.  Confused  with  a  crisis  outside  his  slender 
social  philosophy,  he  acted  true  to  his  tradition,  and 
perhaps  his  type,  and  called  on  a  sheriff's  posse.  What 


72  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

industrial  relationship  had  existed  was  too  insecure 
to  stand  such  a  procedure.  It  disappeared  entirely, 
leaving  in  control  the  instincts  and  vagaries  of  a  mob 
on  the  one  hand,  and  great  apprehension  and  inexperi- 
ence on  the  other. 

"As  if  a  stage  had  been  set,  the  posse  arrived  in 
automobiles  at  the  instant  when  the  officially  'wanted' 
strike-leader  was  addressing  a  mass  meeting  of  ex- 
cited men,  women,  and  children.  After  a  short  and 
typical  period  of  skirmishing  and  the  minor  and  major 
events  of  arresting  a  person  under  such  circumstances, 
a  member  of  the  posse  standing  outside  fired  a  double- 
barreled  shot-gun  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd,  *  to 
sober  them,'  as  he  explained  it.  Four  men  were  killed 
—  two  of  the  posse  and  two  strikers;  the  posse  fled 
in  their  automobiles  to  the  county  seat,  and  all  that 
night  the  roads  out  of  Wheatland  were  filled  with 
pickers  leaving  the  camp.  Eight  months  later,  two 
hop-pickers,  proved  to  be  the  leaders  of  the  strike  and 
its  agitation,  were  convicted  of  murder  in  the  first 
degree  and  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment.  Their 
appeal  for  a  new  trial  was  denied." 

In  his  report  to  the  Governor,  written  in  1914,  Carl 
characterized  the  case  as  follows :  — 

"The  occurrence  known  as  the  Wheatland  Hop- 
Fields  riot  took  place  on  Sunday  afternoon,  August 
3,  1913.  Growing  discontent  among  the  hop-pickers 
over  wages,  neglected  camp-sanitation  and  absence 
of  water  in  the  fields  had  resulted  in  spasmodic  meet- 
ings of  protest  on  Saturday  and  Sunday  morning,  and 
finally  by  Sunday  noon  in  a  more  or  less  involuntary 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  73 

strike.  At  five  o'clock  on  Sunday  about  one  thousand 
pickers  gathered  about  a  dance  pavilion  to  listen  to 
speakers.  Two  automobiles  carrying  a  sheriff's  posse 
drove  up  to  this  meeting,  and  officials  armed  with 
guns  and  revolvers  attempted  to  disperse  the  crowd 
and  to  arrest,  on  a  John  Doe  warrant,  Richard  Ford, 
the  apparent  leader  of  the  strike.  In  the  ensuing 
confusion  shooting  began  and  some  twenty  shots  were 
fired.  Two  pickers,  a  deputy  sheriff,  and  the  district 
attorney  of  the  county  were  killed.  The  posse  fled 
and  the  camp  remained  unpoliced  until  the  State 
Militia  arrived  at  dawn  next  morning. 

"The  occurrence  has  grown  from  a  casual,  though 
bloody,  event  in  California  labor  history  into  such  a 
focus  for  discussion  and  analysis  of  the  State's  great 
migratory  labor-problem  that  the  incident  can  well 
be  said  to  begin,  for  the  commonwealth,  a  new  and 
momentous  labor  epoch. 

" The  problem  of  vagrancy;  that  of  the  unemployed 
and  the  unemployable;  the  vexing  conflict  between 
the  right  of  agitation  and  free  speech  and  the  law 
relating  to  criminal  conspiracy ;  the  housing  and  wages 
of  agricultural  laborers;  the  efficiency  and  sense  of 
responsibility  found  in  a  posse  of  country  deputies; 
the  temper  of  the  country  people  faced  with  the  con- 
fusion and  rioting  of  a  labor  outbreak;  all  these 
problems  have  found  a  starting  point  for  their  new 
and  vigorous  analysis  in  the  Wheatland  riot. 

In  the  same  report,  submitted  a  year  before  the 
"Quarterly  Journal "  article,  and  almost  a  year  before 
his  study  of  psychology  began,  Carl  wrote:  — 


74  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

**The  manager  and  part-owner  of  the  ranch  is  an 
example  of  a  certain  type  of  California  employer.  The 
refusal  of  this  type  to  meet  the  social  responsibilities 
which  come  with  the  hiring  of  human  beings  for  labor, 
not  only  works  concrete  and  cruelly  unnecessary  mis- 
ery upon  a  class  little  able  to  combat  personal  indig- 
nity and  degradation,  but  adds  fuel  to  the  fire  of 
resentment  and  unrest  which  is  beginning  to  burn  in 
the  uncared-for  migratory  worker  in  California.  That 

could  refuse  his  clear  duty  of  real  trusteeship  of 

a  camp  on  his  own  ranch,  which  contained  hundreds 
of  women  and  children,  is  a  social  fact  of  miserable 
import.  The  excuses  we  have  heard  of  unprepared- 
ness,  of  alleged  ignorance  of  conditions,  are  shamed 
by  the  proven  human  suffering  and  humiliation  re- 
peated each  day  of  the  week,  from  Wednesday  to 
Sunday.  Even  where  the  employer's  innate  sense  of 
moral  obligation  fails  to  point  out  his  duty,  he  should 
have  realized  the  insanity  of  stimulating  unrest  and 
bitterness  in  this  inflammable  labor  force.  The  riot 

on  the ranch  is  a  California  contribution  to  the 

literature  of  the  social  unrest  in  America." 

As  to  the  "Legal  and  Economic  Aspects"  of  the 
case,  again  quoting  from  the  report  to  the  Governor :  — 

"The  position  taken  by  the  defense  and  their  sym- 
pathizers in  the  course  of  the  trial  has  not  only  an 
economic  and  social  bearing,  but  many  arguments 
made  before  the  court  are  distinct  efforts  to  introduce 
sociological  modifications  of  the  law  which  will  have 
a  far-reaching  effect  on  the  industrial  relations  of 
capital  and  labor.  It  is  asserted  that  the  common  law, 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  75 

on  which  American  jurisprudence  is  founded,  is  known 
as  an  ever-developing  law,  which  must  adapt  itself 
to  changing  economic  and  social  conditions;  and,  in 
this  connection,  it  is  claimed  that  the  established  the- 
ories of  legal  causation  must  be  enlarged  to  include 
economic  and  social  factors  in  the  chain  of  causes 
leading  to  a  result.  Concretely,  it  is  argued:  — 

"First,  That,  when  unsanitary  conditions  lead  to 
discontent  so  intense  that  the  crowd  can  be  incited 
to  bloodshed,  those  responsible  for  the  unsanitary 
conditions  are  to  be  held  legally  responsible  for  the 
bloodshed,  as  well  as  the  actual  inciters  of  the  riot. 

"Second,  That,  if  the  law  will  not  reach  out  so  far 
as  to  hold  the  creator  of  unsanitary,  unlivable  condi- 
tions guilty  of  bloodshed,  at  any  rate  such  conditions 
excuse  the  inciters  from  liability,  because  inciters  are 
the  involuntary  transmitting  agents  of  an  uncon- 
trollable force  set  in  motion  by  those  who  created  the 
unlivable  conditions.  .  .  . 

"Furthermore,  on  the  legal  side,  modifications  of 
the  law  of  property  are  urged.  It  is  argued  that  mod- 
em law  no  longer  holds  the  rights  of  private  property 
sacred,  that  these  rights  are  being  constantly  regu- 
lated and  limited,  and  that  in  the  Wheatland  case  the 
owner's  traditional  rights  in  relation  to  his  own  lands 
are  to  be  held  subject  to  the  right  of  the  laborers  to 
organize  thereon.  It  is  urged  that  a  worker  on  land 
has  a  'property  right  in  his  job,'  and  that  he  cannot 
be  made  to  leave  the  job,  or  the  land,  merely  because 
he  is  trying  to  organize  his  fellow  workers  to  make 
a  protest  as  to  living  and  economic  conditions.  It  is 


76  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

urged  that  the  organizing  worker  cannot  be  made  to 
leave  the  job  because  the  job  is  his  property  and  it  is 
all  that  he  has." 

As  to  "The  Remedy":  — 

"It  is  obvious  that  the  violent  strike  methods 
adopted  by  the  I. WAV.  type  agitators,  which  only 
incidentally,  although  effectively,  tend  to  improve 
camp  conditions,  are  not  to  be  accepted  as  a  solution 
of  the  problem.  It  is  also  obvious  that  the  conviction 
of  the  agitators,  such  as  Ford  and  Suhr,  of  murder, 
is  not  a  solution,  but  is  only  the  punishment  or  re- 
venge inflicted  by  organized  society  for  a  past  deed. 
The  Remedy  lies  in  prevention. 

"It  is  the  opinion  of  your  investigator  that  the 
improvement  of  living  conditions  in  the  labor  camps 
will  have  the  immediate  effect  of  making  the  recur- 
rence of  impassioned,  violent  strikes  and  riots  not 
only  improbable,  but  impossible;  and  furthermore, 
such  improvement  will  go  far  towards  eradicating  the 
hatred  and  bitterness  in  the  minds  of  the  employers 
and  in  the  minds  of  the  roving,  migratory  laborers. 
This  accomplished,  the  two  conflicting  parties  will  be 
in  a  position  to  meet  on  a  saner,  more  constructive 
basis,  in  solving  the  further  industrial  problems  aris- 
ing between  them.  .  .  . 

"They  must  come  to  realize  that  their  own  laxity 
in  allowing  the  existence  of  unsanitary  and  filthy  con- 
ditions gives  a  much-desired  foothold  to  the  very 
agitators  of  the  revolutionary  I.W.W.  doctrines  whom 
they  so  dread;  they  must  learn  that  unbearable, 
aggravating  living  conditions  inoculate  the  minds  of 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  77 

the  otherwise  peaceful  workers  with  the  germs  of 
bitterness  and  violence,  as  so  well  exemplified  at  the 
Wheatland  riot,  giving  the  agitators  a  fruitful  field 
wherein  to  sow  the  seeds  of  revolt  and  preach  the 
doctrine  of  direct  action  and  sabotage. 

"On  the  other  hand,  the  migratory  laborers  must 
be  shown  that  revolts  accompanied  by  force  in  scat- 
tered and  isolated  localities  not  only  involve  serious 
breaches  of  law  and  lead  to  crime,  but  that  they 
accomplish  no  lasting  constructive  results  in  advanc- 
ing their  cause. 

"The  Commission  intends  to  furnish  a  clearing- 
house to  hear  complaints  of  grievances,  of  both  sides, 
and  act  as  a  mediator  or  safety-valve." 

In  the  report  to  the  Governor  appear  Carl's  first 
writings  on  the  I.W.W. 

"Of  this  entire  labor  force  at  the ranch,  it 

appears  that  some  100  had  been  I.W.W.  'card  men,' 
or  had  had  affiliations  with  that  organization.  There 
is  evidence  that  there  was  in  this  camp  a  loosely 
caught  together  camp  local  of  the  I.W.W.,  with  about 
30  active  members.  It  is  suggestive  that  these  30  men, 
through  a  spasmodic  action,  and  with  the  aid  of  the 
deplorable  camp  conditions,  dominated  a  heterogene- 
ous mass  of  2800  unskilled  laborers  in  3  days.  Some 
700  or  800  of  the  force  were  of  the  'hobo'  class,  in 
every  sense  potential  I.W.W.  strikers.  At  least  400 
knew  in  a  rough  way  the  —  for  them  curiously  attrac- 
tive —  philosophy  of  the  I.W.W.,  and  could  also  sing 
some  of  its  songs. 

"Of  the  100-odd  'card  men'  of  the  I.W.W.,  some 


78  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

had  been  through  the  San  Diego  affair,  some  had  been 
soap- boxers  in  Fresno,  a  dozen  had  been  in  the  Free 
Speech  fight  in  Spokane.  They  sized  up  the  hop-field 
as  a  ripe  opportunity,  as  the  principal  defendant, 
'Blackie'  Ford,  puts  it,  *to  start  something.'  On 
Friday,  two  days  after  picking  began,  the  practical 
agitators  began  working  through  the  camp.  Whether 

or  not  Ford  came  to  the ranch  to  foment  trouble 

seems  immaterial.  There  are  five  Fords  in  every 
camp  of  seasonal  laborers  in  California.  We  have 
devoted  ourselves  in  these  weeks  to  such  questions 
as  this:  'How  big  a  per  cent  of  California's  migratory 
seasonal  labor  force  know  the  technique  of  an  I.W.W. 
strike?'  'How  many  of  the  migratory  laborers  know 
when  conditions  are  ripe  to  "start  something"?*  We 
are  convinced  that  among  the  individuals  of  every 
fruit-farm  labor  group  are  many  potential  strikers. 
Where  a  group  of  hoboes  sit  around  a  fire  under  a 
railroad  bridge,  many  of  the  group  can  sing  I.W.W. 
songs  without  the  book.  This  was  not  so  three  years 
ago.  The  I.W.W.  in  California  is  not  a  closely  organ- 
ized body,  with  a  steady  membership.  The  rank  and 
file  know  little  of  the  technical  organization  of  indus- 
trial life  which  their  written  constitution  demands. 
They  listen  eagerly  to  the  appeal  for  the  'solidarity' 
of  their  class.  In  the  dignifying  of  vagabondage 
through  their  crude  but  virile  song  and  verse,  in  the 
bitter  vilification  of  the  jail  turnkey  and  county 
sheriff,  in  their  condemnation  of  the  church  and  its 
formal  social  work,  they  find  the  vindication  of  their 
hobo  status  which  they  desire,  They  cannot  sustain 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  79 

a  live  organization  unless  they  have  a  strike  or  free- 
speech  fight  to  stimulate  their  spirit.  It  is  in  their 
methods  of  warfare,  not  in  their  abstract  philosophy 
or  even  hatred  of  law  and  judges,  that  danger  lies  for 
organized  society.  Since  every  one  of  the  5000  labor- 
ers in  California  who  have  been  at  some  time  con- 
nected with  the  I.W.W.  considers  himself  a  'camp 
delegate*  with  walking  papers  to  organize  a  camp 
local,  this  small  army  is  watching,  as  Ford  did,  for  an 
unsanitary  camp  or  low  wage-scale,  to  start  the  strike 
which  will  not  only  create  a  new  I.W.W.  local,  but 
bring  fame  to  the  organizer.  This  common  acceptance 
of  direct  action  and  sabotage  as  the  rule  of  operation, 
the  songs  and  the  common  vocabulary  are,  we  feel 
convinced,  the  first  stirring  of  a  class  expression. 

"Class  solidarity  they  have  not.  That  may  never 
come,  for  the  migratory  laborer  has  neither  the  force 
nor  the  vision  nor  tenacity  to  hold  long  enough  to  the 
ideal  to  attain  it.  But  the  I.W.W.  is  teaching  a  method 
of  action  which  will  give  this  class  in  violent  flare-ups, 
such  as  that  at  Wheatland,  expression. 

"The  dying  away  of  the  organization  after  the  out- 
burst is,  therefore,  to  be  expected.  Their  social  con- 
dition is  a  miserable  one.  Their  work,  even  at  the 
best,  must  be  irregular.  They  have  nothing  to  lose  in 
a  strike,  and,  as  a  leader  put  it,  '  A  riot  and  a  chance 
to  blackguard  a  jailer  is  about  the  only  intellectual 
fun  we  have.* 

"Taking  into  consideration  the  misery  and  physical 
privation  and  the  barren  outlook  of  this  life  of  the 
seasonal  worker,  the  I.W.W.  movement,  with  all  its 


8o  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

irresponsible  motive  and  unlawful  action,  becomes  in 
reality  a  class-protest,  and  the  dignity  which  this 
characteristic  gives  it  perhaps  alone  explains  the 
persistence  of  the  organization  in  the  field. 

"Those  attending  the  protest  mass-meeting  of  the 
Wheatland  hop-pickers  were  singing  the  I.W.W.  song 
'Mr.  Block,*  when  the  sheriff's  posse  came  up  in  its 
automobiles.  The  crowd  had  been  harangued  by  an 
experienced  I.W.W.  orator — 'Blackie'  Ford.  They 
had  been  told,  according  to  evidence,  to  'knock  the 
blocks  off  the  scissor-bills.*  Ford  had  taken  a  sick 
baby  from  its  mother's  arms  and,  holding  it  before 
the  eyes  of  the  1500  people,  had  cried  out:  'It's  for 
the  life  of  the  kids  we're  doing  this.'  Not  a  quarter 
of  the  crowd  was  of  a  type  normally  venturesome 
enough  to  strike,  and  yet,  when  the  sheriff  went  after 
Ford,  he  was  knocked  down  and  kicked  senseless  by 
infuriated  men.  In  the  bloody  riot  which  then  ensued, 
District  Attorney  Manwell,  Deputy  Sheriff  Riordan, 
a  negro  Porto  Rican  and  the  English  boy  were  shot 
and  killed.  Many  were  wounded.  The  posse  literally 
fled,  and  the  camp  remained  practically  unpoliced 
until  the  State  Militia  arrived  at  dawn  the  next  day. 

"The  question  of  social  responsibility  is  one  of  the 
deepest  significance.  The  posse  was,  I  am  convinced, 
over-nervous  and,  unfortunately,  over-rigorous.  This 
can  be  explained  in  part  by  the  state-wide  apprehen- 
sion over  the  I.W.W.;  in  part  by  the  normal  Cali- 
fornia country  posse's  attitude  toward  a  labor  trouble. 
A  deputy  sheriff,  at  the  most  critical  moment,  fired 
a  shot  in  the  air,  as  he  stated,  '  to  sober  the  crowd.' 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  81 

There  were  armed  men  in  the  crowd,  for  every  crowd 
of  2000  casual  laborers  includes  a  score  of  gunmen. 
Evidence  goes  to  show  that  even  the  gentler  moun- 
tainfolk  in  the  crowd  had  been  aroused  to  a  sense  of 

personal  injury. 's  automobile  had  brought  part 

of  the  posse.  Numberless  pickers  cling  to  the  belief 

that  the  posse  was  ' 's  police.'  When  Deputy 

Sheriff  Dakin  shot  into  the  air,  a  fusillade  took  place; 
and  when  he  had  fired  his  last  shell,  an  infuriated 
crowd  of  men  and  women  chased  him  to  the  ranch 
store,  where  he  was  forced  to  barricade  himself.  The 
crowd  was  dangerous  and  struck  the  first  blow.  The 
murderous  temper  which  turned  the  crowd  into  a  mob 
is  incompatible  with  social  existence,  let  alone  social 
progress.  The  crowd  at  the  moment  of  the  shooting 
was  a  wild  and  lawless  animal.  But  to  your  investi- 
gator the  important  subject  to  analyze  is  not  the  guilt 
or  innocence  of  Ford  or  Suhr,  as  the  direct  stimulators 
of  the  mob  in  action,  but  to  name  and  standardize  the 
early  and  equally  important  contributors  to  a  psycho- 
logical situation  which  resulted  in  an  unlawful  killing. 
If  this  is  done,  how  can  we  omit  either  the  filth  of  the 
hop-ranch,  the  cheap  gun-talk  of  the  ordinary  deputy 
sheriff,  or  the  unbridled,  irresponsible  speech  of  the 
soap-box  orator? 

"Without  doubt  the  propaganda  which  the  I.W.W. 
had  actually  adopted  for  the  California  seasonal 
worker  can  be,  in  its  fairly  normal  working  out  in  law, 
a  criminal  conspiracy,  and  under  that  charge,  Ford 
and  Suhr  have  been  found  guilty  of  the  Wheatland 
murder.  But  the  important  fact  is,  that  this  propa- 


82  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

ganda  will  be  carried  out,  whether  unlawful  or  not. 
We  have  talked  hours  with  the  I.W.W.  leaders,  and 
they  are  absolutely  conscious  of  their  position  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law.  Their  only  comment  is  that  they  are 
glad,  if  it  must  be  a  conspiracy,  that  it  is  a  criminal 
conspiracy.  They  have  volunteered  the  beginning  of 
a  cure;  it  is  to  clean  up  the  housing  and  wage  problem 
of  the  seasonal  worker.  The  shrewdest  I.W.W.  leader 
we  found  said:  'We  can't  agitate  in  the  country  un- 
less things  are  rotten  enough  to  bring  the  crowd  along.' 
They  evidently  were  in  Wheatland." 

He  was  high  ace  with  the  Wobbly  for  a  while.  They 
invited  him  to  their  Jungles,  they  carved  him  pres- 
ents in  jail.  I  remember  a  talk  he  gave  on  some  phase 
of  the  California  labor-problem  one  Sunday  night,  at 
the  Congregational  church  in  Oakland.  The  last  three 
rows  were  filled  with  unshaven  hoboes,  who  filed  up 
afterwards,  to  the  evident  distress  of  the  clean  regular 
church-goers,  to  clasp  his  hand.  They  withdrew  their 
allegiance  after  a  time,  which  naturally  in  no  way 
phased  Carl's  scientific  interest  in  them.  A  paper  hos- 
tile to  Carl's  attitude  on  the  I.W.W.  and  his  insistence 
on  the  clean-up  of  camps  published  an  article  por- 
traying him  as  a  double-faced  individual  who  feigned 
an  interest  in  the  under-dog  really  to  undo  him,  as  he 
was  at  heart  and  pocket-book  a  capitalist,  being  the 
possessor  of  an  independent  income  of  $150,000  a 
year.  Some  I.W.W. 's  took  this  up,  and  convinced  a 
large  meeting  that  he  was  really  trying  to  sell  them 
out.  It  is  not  only  the  rich  who  are  fickle.  Some  of 
them  remained  his  firm  friends  always,  however. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  83 

That  summer  two  of  his  students  hoboed  it  till  they 
came  down  with  malaria,  in  the  meantime  turning  in 
a  fund  of  invaluable  facts  regarding  the  migratory 
and  his  life. 

A  year  later,  in  his  article  in  the  "Quarterly 
Journal,"  and,  be  it  remembered,  after  his  study  of 
psychology  had  begun,  Carl  wrote:  — 

"There  is  here,  beyond  a  doubt,  a  great  laboring 
population  experiencing  a  high  suppression  of  normal 
instincts  and  traditions.  There  can  be  no  greater  per- 
version of  a  desirable  existence  than  this  insecure, 
under-nourished,  wandering  life,  with  its  sordid  sex- 
expression  and  reckless  and  rare  pleasures.  Such  a  life 
leads  to  one  of  two  consequences:  either  a  sinking  of 
the  class  to  a  low  and  hopeless  level,  where  they  be- 
come, through  irresponsible  conduct  and  economic 
inefficiency,  a  charge  upon  society;  or  revolt  and 
guerrilla  labor  warfare. 

"The  migratory  laborers,  as  a  class,  are  the  fin- 
ished product  of  an  environment  which  seems  cruelly 
efficient  in  turning  out  beings  moulded  after  all  the 
standards  society  abhors.  Fortunately  the  psycholo- 
gists have  made  it  unnecessary  to  explain  that  there 
is  nothing  willful  or  personally  reprehensible  in  the 
vagrancy  of  these  vagrants.  Their  histories  show  that, 
starting  with  the  long  hours  and  dreary  winters  of  the 
farms  they  ran  away  from,  through  their  character- 
debasing  experience  with  irregular  industrial  labor, 
on  to  the  vicious  economic  life  of  the  winter  unem- 
ployed, their  training  predetermined  but  one  out- 
come. Nurture  has  triumphed  over  nature;  the  envi* 


84  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

ronment  has  produced  its  type.  Difficult  though  the 
organization  of  these  people  may  be,  a  coincidence  of 
favoring  conditions  may  place  an  opportunity  in  the 
hands  of  a  super-leader.  If  this  comes,  one  can  be 
sure  that  California  will  be  both  very  astonished  and 
very  misused." 

I  was  told  only  recently  of  a  Belgian  economics 
professor,  out  here  in  California  during  the  war,  on 
official  business  connected  with  aviation.  He  asked  at 
once  to  see  Carl,  but  was  told  we  had  moved  to 
Seattle.  "My  colleagues  in  Belgium  asked  me  to  be 
sure  and  see  Professor  Parker,"  he  said,  "as  we  con- 
sider him  the  one  man  in  America  who  understands 
the  problem  of  the  migratory  laborer." 

That  winter  Carl  got  the  city  of  San  Jos6  to  stand 
behind  a  model  unemployed  lodging-house,  one  of 
the  two  students  who  had  "hoboed"  during  the  sum- 
mer taking  charge  of  it.  The  unemployed  problem, 
as  he  ran  into  it  at  every  turn,  stirred  Carl  to  his 
depths.  At  one  time  he  felt  it  so  strongly  that  he 
wanted  to  start  a  lodging-house  in  Berkeley,  himself, 
just  to  be  helping  out  somehow,  even  though  it  would 
be  only  surface  help. 

It  was  also  about  this  time  that  California  was 
treated  to  the  spectacle  of  an  Unemployed  Army, 
which  was  driven  from  pillar  to  post,  —  or,  in  this 
case,  from  town  to  town,  —  each  trying  to  outdo  the 
last  in  protestations  of  unhospitality.  Finally,  in 
Sacramento  the  fire-hoses  were  turned  on  the  army. 
At  that  Carl  flamed  with  indignation,  and  expressed 
himself  in  no  mincing  terms,  both  to  the  public  and 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  8^ 

to  the  reporter  who  sought  his  views.  He  was  no  hand 
to  keep  clippings,  but  I  did  come  across  one  of  his 
milder  interviews  in  the  San  Francisco  "Bulletin" 
of  March  ii,  1914. 

"That  California's  method  of  handling  the  unem- 
ployed problem  is  in  accord  with  the  'careless,  cruel 
and  unscientific  attitude  of  society  on  the  labor  ques- 
tion,* is  the  statement  made  to-day  by  Professor 
Carleton  H.  Parker,  Assistant  Professor  of  Industrial 
economy,  and  secretary  of  the  State  Immigration 
Committee. 

"'There  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  this  winter's 
unemployed  problem,'  said  Dr.  Parker;  'one  is  fatally 
bad  and  the  other  promises  good.  One  way  is  shallow 
and  biased;  the  other  strives  to  use  the  simple  rules 
of  science  for  the  analysis  of  any  problem.  One  way 
is  to  damn  the  army  of  the  unemployed  and  the  irre- 
sponsible, irritating  vagrants  who  will  not  work.  The 
other  way  is  to  admit  that  any  such  social  phenome- 
non as  this  army  is  just  as  normal  a  product  of  our 
social  organization  as  our  own  university. 

"  'Much  street-car  and  ferry  analysis  of  this  problem 
that  I  have  overheard  seems  to  believe  that  this  army 
created  its  own  degraded  self,  that  a  vagrant  is  a 
vagrant  from  personal  desire  and  perversion.  This 
analysis  is  as  shallow  as  it  is  untrue.  If  unemployment 
and  vagrancy  are  the  product  of  our  careless,  indiffer- 
ent society  over  the  half-century,  then  its  cure  will 
come  only  by  a  half-century's  careful  regretful  social 
labor  by  this  same  tardy  society. 

"  'The  riot  at  Sacramento  is  merely  the  appearance 


86  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

of  the  problem  from  the  back  streets  into  the  strong 
light.  The  handling  of  the  problem  there  is  unhappily 
in  accord  with  the  careless,  cruel  attitude  of  society  on 
this  question.  We  are  willing  to  respect  the  anxiety 
of  Sacramento,  threatened  in  the  night  with  this  irre- 
sponsible, reckless  invasion;  but  how  can  the  city 
demand  of  vagrants  observance  of  the  law,  when  they 
drop  into  mob-assertion  the  minute  the  problem  comes 
up  to  them?"' 

The  illustration  he  always  used  to  express  his  opin- 
ion of  the  average  solution  of  unemployment,  I  quote 
from  a  paper  of  his  on  that  subject,  written  in  the 
spring  of  1915. 

"There  is  an  old  test  for  insanity  which  is  made  as 
follows:  the  suspect  is  given  a  cup,  and  is  told  to 
empty  a  bucket  into  which  water  is  running  from  a 
faucet.  If  the  suspect  turns  off  the  water  before  he 
begins  to  bail  out  the  bucket,  he  is  sane.  Nearly  all 
the  current  solutions  of  unemployment  leave  the 
faucet  running.  .  .  . 

"The  heart  of  the  problem,  the  cause,  one  might 
well  say,  of  unemployment,  is  that  the  employment 
of  men  regularly  or  irregularly  is  at  no  time  an 
important  consideration  of  those  minds  which  con- 
trol industry.  Social  organization  has  ordered  it  that 
these  minds  shall  be  interested  only  in  achieving  a 
reasonable  profit  in  the  manufacture  and  the  sale  of 
goods.  Society  has  never  demanded  that  industries 
be  run  even  in  part  to  give  men  employment.  Rewards 
are  not  held  out  for  such  a  policy,  and  therefore  it  is 
unreasonable  to  expect  such  a  performance.  Though 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  87 

a  favorite  popular  belief  is  that  we  must  'work  to 
live,*  we  have  no  current  adage  of  a  'right  to  work.' 
This  winter  there  are  shoeless  men  and  women, 
closed  shoe-factories,  and  destitute  shoemakers;  chil- 
dren in  New  England  with  no  woolen  clothing,  half- 
time  woolen  mills,  and  unemployed  spinners  and 
weavers.  Why?  Simply  because  the  mills  cannot  turn 
out  the  reasonable  business  profit;  and  since  that  is 
the  only  promise  that  can  galvanize  them  into  activ- 
ity, they  stand  idle,  no  matter  how  much  humanity 
finds  of  misery  and  death  in  this  decision.  This  state- 
ment is  not  a  peroration  to  a  declaration  for  Socialism. 
It  seems  a  fair  rendering  of  the  matter-of-fact  logic 
of  the  analysis. 

"It  seems  hopeless,  and  also  unfair,  to  expect  out- 
of-work  insurance,  employment  bureaus,  or  philan- 
thropy, to  counteract  the  controlling  force  of  profit- 
seeking.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  profit- 
seeking  has  been  a  tremendous  stimulus  to  economic 
activity  in  the  past.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  present  great 
accumulation  of  capital  would  have  come  into  exist- 
ence without  it.  But  to-day  it  seems  as  it  were  to  be 
caught  up  by  its  own  social  consequences.  It  is  hard 
to  escape  from  the  insistence  of  a  situation  in  which 
the  money  a  workman  makes  in  a  year  fails  to  cover 
the  upkeep  of  his  family;  and  this  impairment  of  the 
father's  income  through  unemployment  has  largely 
to  be  met  by  child-  and  woman-labor.  The  Federal 
Immigration  Commission's  report  shows  that  in  not 
a  single  great  American  industry  can  the  average 
yearly  income  of  the  father  keep  his  family.  Seven 


88  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

hundred  and  fifty  dollars  is  the  bare  minimum  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  average-sized  American  industrial 
family.  The  average  yearly  earnings  of  the  heads  of 
families  working  in  the  United  States  in  the  iron  and 
steel  industry  is  $409;  in  bituminous  coal-mining 
$451;  in  the  woolen  industry  $400;  in  silk  $448;  in 
cotton  $470;  in  clothing  $530;  in  boots  and  shoes 
$573;  in  leather  $511;  in  sugar-refining  $549;  in  the 
meat  industry  $578;  in  furniture  $598,  etc. 

"He  who  decries  created  work,  municipal  lodging- 
houses,  bread-lines,  or  even  sentimental  charity,  in  the 
face  of  the  winter's  destitution,  has  an  unsocial  soul. 
The  most  despicable  thing  to-day  is  the  whine  of  our 
cities  lest  their  inadequate  catering  to  their  own  home- 
less draw  a  few  vagrants  from  afar.  But  when  the 
agony  of  our  winter  makeshifting  is  by,  will  a  suffi- 
cient minority  of  our  citizens  rise  and  demand  that  the 
best  technical,  economic,  and  sociological  brains  in 
our  wealthy  nation  devote  themselves  with  all  cour- 
age and  honesty  to  the  problem  of  unemployment?" 

Carl  was  no  diplomat,  in  any  sense  of  the  word  — 
above  all,  no  political  diplomat.  It  is  a  wonder  that 
the  Immigration  and  Housing  Commission  stood  be- 
hind him  as  long  as  it  did.  He  grew  rabid  at  every 
political  appointment  which,  in  his  eyes,  hampered 
his  work.  It  was  evident,  so  they  felt,  that  he  was  not 
tactful  in  his  relations  with  various  members  of  the 
Commission.  It  all  galled  him  terribly,  and  after  much 
consultation  at  home,  he  handed  in  his  resignation. 
During  the  first  term  of  his  secretaryship,  from  Octo- 
ber to  December,  he  carried  his  full-time  University 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  89 

work.  From  January  to  May  he  had  a  seminar  only, 
as  I  remember.  From  August  on  he  gave  no  Univer- 
sity work  at  all ;  so,  after  asking  to  have  his  resignation 
from  the  Commission  take  effect  at  once,  he  had  at 
once  to  find  something  to  do  to  support  his  family. 

This  was  in  October,  19 14,  after  just  one  year  as 
Executive  Secretary.  We  were  over  in  Contra  Costa 
County  then,  on  a  little  ranch  of  my  father's.  Berkeley 
socially  had  come  to  be  too  much  of  a  strain,  and, 
too,  we  wanted  the  blessed  sons  to  have  a  real  country 
experience.  Ten  months  we  were  there.  Three  days 
after  Carl  resigned,  he  was  on  his  way  to  Phoenix, 
Arizona,  — where  there  was  a  threatened  union  tie-up, 

—  as  United  States  Government  investigator  of  the 
labor  situation.  He  added  thereby  to  his  first-hand 
stock  of  labor-knowledge,  made  a  firm  friend  of 
Governor  Hunt,  —  he  was  especially  interested  in  his 
prison  policy,  —  and  in  those  few  weeks  was  the 
richer  by  one  more  of  the  really  intimate  friendships 
one  counts  on  to  the  last  —  Will  Scarlett. 

He  wrote,  on  Carl's  death,  "What  a  horrible,  hid- 
eous loss !  Any  of  us  could  so  easily  have  been  spared ; 
that  he,  who  was  of  such  value,  had  to  go  seems  such 
an  utter  waste.  .  .  .  He  was  one  of  that  very,  very 
small  circle  of  men,  whom,  in  the  course  of  our  lives, 
we  come  really  to  love.  His  friendship  meant  so  much 

—  though  I  heard  but  infrequently  from  him,  there 
wa^  the  satisfaction  of  a  deep  friendship  that  was  al- 
ways there  and  always  the  same.  He  would  have  gone 
so  far!  I  have  looked  forward  to  a  great  career  for 
him,  and  had  such  pride  in  him.  It's  too  hideous!" 


CHAPTER  X 

In  January,  19 15,  Carl  took  up  his  teaching  again  in 
real  earnest,  commuting  to  Alamo  every  night.  I 
would  have  the  boys  in  bed  and  the  little  supper  all 
ready  by  the  fire;  then  I  would  prowl  down  the  road 
with  my  electric  torch,  to  meet  him  coming  home;  he 
would  signal  in  the  distance  with  his  torch,  and  I  with 
mine.  Then  the  walk  back  together,  sometimes  ankle- 
deep  in  mud ;  then  supper,  making  the  toast  over  the 
coals,  and  an  evening  absolutely  to  ourselves.  And 
never  in  all  our  lives  did  we  ask  for  more  joy  than 
that. 

That  spring  we  began  building  our  very  own  home 
in  Berkeley.  The  months  in  Alamo  had  made  us  feel 
that  we  could  never  bear  to  be  in  the  centre  of  things 
again,  nor,  for  that  matter,  could  we  afford  a  lot  in 
the  centre  of  things;  so  we  bought  high  up  on  the 
Berkeley  hills,  where  we  could  realize  as  much  privacy 
as  was  possible,  and  yet  where  our  friends  could  reach 
us  —  if  they  could  stand  the  climb.  The  love  of  a  nest 
we  built!  We  were  longer  in  that  house  than  anywhere 
else:  two  years  almost  to  the  day  —  two  years  of  such 
happiness  as  no  other  home  has  ever  seen.  There, 
around  the  redwood  table  in  the  living-room,  by  the 
window  overlooking  the  Golden  Gate,  we  had  the 
suppers  that  meant  much  joy  to  us  and  I  hope  to  the 
friends  we  gathered  around  us.  There,  on  the  porches 
overhanging  the  very  Canyon  itself  we  had  our  Sun- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  91 

day  tea-parties.  (Each  time  Carl  would  plead,  "  I  don't 
have  to  wear  a  stiff  collar,  do  I?"  and  he  knew  that  I 
would  answer,  "You  wear  anything  you  want, "  which 
usually  meant  a  blue  soft  shirt.) 

We  had  a  little  swimming-tank  in  back,  for  the 
boys. 

And  then,  most  wonderful  of  all,  came  the  day 
when  the  June-Bug  was  born,  the  daughter  who  was 
to  be  the  very  light  of  her  adoring  father's  eyes.  (Her 
real  name  is  Alice  Lee.)  "Mother,  there  never  really 
was  such  a  baby,  was  there?"  he  would  ask  ten  times 
a  day.  She  was  not  born  up  on  the  hill ;  but  in  ten  days 
we  were  back  from  the  hospital  and  out  day  and  night 
through  that  glorious  July,  on  some  one  of  the  porches 
overlooking  the  bay  and  the  hills.  And  we  added  our 
adored  Nurse  Balch  as  a  friend  of  the  family  forever. 

I  always  think  of  Nurse  Balch  as  the  person  who 
more  than  any  other,  perhaps,  understood  to  some 
degree  just  what  happiness  filled  our  lives  day  in  and 
day  out.  No  one  assumes  anything  before  a  trained 
nurse  —  they  are  around  too  constantly  for  that. 
They  see  the  misery  in  homes,  they  see  what  joy 
there  is.  And  Nurse  Balch  saw,  because  she  was 
around  practically  all  the  time  for  six  weeks,  that 
there  was  nothing  but  joy  every  minute  of  the  day 
in  our  home.  I  do  not  know  how  I  can  make  people 
understand,  who  are  used  to  just  ordinary  happiness, 
what  sort  of  a  life  Carl  and  I  led.  It  was  not  just  that 
we  got  along.  It  was  an  active,  not  a  passive  state. 
There  was  never  a  home-coming,  say  at  lunch-time, 
that  did  not  seem  an  event  —  when  our  curve  of  hap- 


92  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

piness  abruptly  rose.  Meals  were  joyous  occasions 
always ;  perhaps  too  scant  attention  paid  to  the  man- 
ners of  the  young,  but  much  gurglings,  and  "Tell 
some  more,  daddy,"  and  always  detailed  accounts  of 
every  little  happening  during  the  last  few  hours  of 
separation. 

Then  there  was  ever  the  difficulty  of  good-byes, 
though  it  meant  only  for  a  few  hours,  until  supper. 
And  at  supper-time  he  would  come  up  the  front  stairs, 
I  waiting  for  him  at  the  top,  perhaps  limping.  That 
was  his  little  joke  —  we  had  many  little  family  jokes. 
Limping  meant  that  I  was  to  look  in  every  pocket 
until  I  unearthed  a  bag  of  peanut  candy.  Usually  he 
was  laden  with  bundles  —  provisions,  shoes  from  the 
cobbler,  a  tennis-racket  restrung,  and  an  armful  of 
books.  After  greetings,  always  the  question,  "How's 
my  June-Bug?"  and  a  family  procession  upstairs  to 
peer  over  a  crib  at  a  fat  gurgler.  And  "Mother,  there 
never  really  was  such  a  baby,  was  there?"  No,  nor 
such  a  father. 

It  was  that  first  summer  back  in  Berkeley,  the  year 
before  the  June-Bug  was  born,  when  Carl  was  teach- 
ing in  Summer  School,  that  we  had  our  definite 
enthusiasm  over  labor-psychology  aroused.  Will 
Ogburn,  who  was  also  teaching  at  Summer  School  that 
year,  and  whose  lectures  I  attended,  introduced  us  to 
Hart's  "Psychology  of  Insanity,"  several  books  by 
Freud,  McDougall's  "Social  Psychology,"  etc.  I  re- 
member Carl's  seminar  the  following  spring  —  his 
last  seminar  at  the  University  of  California.  He  had 
started  with  nine  seminar  students  three  years  be- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  93 

fore ;  now  there  were  thirty-three.  They  were  all  such 
a  superior  picked  lot,  some  seniors,  mostly  graduates, 
that  he  felt  there  was  no  one  he  could  ask  to  stay 
out.  I  visited  it  all  the  term,  and  I  am  sure  that  no- 
where else  on  the  campus  could  quite  such  heated 
and  excited  discussions  have  been  heard  —  Carl  sim- 
ply sitting  at  the  head  of  the  table,  directing  here, 
leading  there. 

The  general  subject  was  Labor-Problems.  The  stu- 
dents had  to  read  one  book  a  week  —  such  books  as 
Hart's  " Psychology  of  Insanity,"  Keller's  "Societal 
Evolution,"  Holt's  "Freudian  Wish,"  McDougall's 
"Social  Psychology,"  —  two  weeks  to  that,  —  Lipp- 
mann's  "Preface  to  Politics,"  Veblen's  "Instinct  of 
Workmanship,"  Wallas's  "Great  Society,"  Thorn- 
dike's  "  Educational  Psychology,"  Hoxie's  "Scientific 
Management,"  Ware's  "The  Worker  and  his  Coun- 
try," G.  H.  Parker's  "Biology  and  Social  Problems," 
and  so  forth  —  and  ending,  as  a  concession  to  the 
idealists,  with  Royce's  "Philosophy  of  Loyalty." 

One  of  the  graduate  students  of  the  seminar  wrote 
me:  "For  three  years  I  sat  in  his  seminar  on  Labor- 
Problems,  and  had  we  both  been  there  ten  years  longer, 
each  season  would  have  found  me  in  his  class.  His 
influence  on  my  intellectual  life  was  by  far  the  most 
stimulating  and  helpful  of  all  the  men  I  have  known. 
.  .  .  But  his  spirit  and  influence  will  live  on  in  the 
lives  of  those  who  sat  at  his  feet  and  learned." 

The  seminar  was  too  large,  really,  for  intimate  dis- 
cussion, so  after  a  few  weeks  several  of  the  boys  asked 
Carl  if  they  could  have  a  little  sub-seminar.  It  was  a 


94  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

very  rushed  time  for  him,  but  he  said  that,  if  they 
would  arrange  all  the  details,  he  would  save  them 
Tuesday  evenings.  So  every  Tuesday  night  about  a 
dozen  boys  climbed  our  hill  to  rediscuss  the  subject  of 
the  seminar  of  that  afternoon  —  and  everything  else 
under  the  heavens  and  beyond.  I  laid  out  ham  sand- 
wiches, or  sausages,  or  some  edible  dear  to  the  male 
heart,  and  coffee  to  be  warmed,  and  about  midnight 
could  be  heard  the  sounds  of  banqueting  from  the 
kitchen.  Three  students  told  me  on  graduation  that 
those  Tuesday  nights  at  our  house  had  meant  more 
intellectual  stimulus  than  anything  that  ever  came 
into  their  lives. 

One  of  these  boys  wrote  to  me  after  Carl's  death:  — 
"When  I  heard  that  Doc  had  gone,  one  of  the  finest 
and  cleanest  men  I  have  ever  had  the  privilege  of 
associating  with,  I  seemed  to  have  stopped  thinking. 
It  did  n't  seem  possible  to  me,  and  I  can  remember 
very  clearly  of  thinking  what  a  rotten  world  this  is 
when  we  have  to  live  and  lose  a  man  like  Doc.  I  have 
talked  to  two  men  who  were  associated  with  him  in 
somewhat  the  same  manner  as  I  was,  and  we  simply 
looked  at  one  another  after  the  first  sentences,  and 
then  I  guess  the  thoughts  of  a  man  who  had  made  so 
much  of  an  impression  on  our  minds  drove  coherent 
speech  away.  ...  I  have  had  the  opportunity  since 
leaving  college  of  experiencing  something  real  besides 
college  life  and  I  can't  remember  during  all  that 
period  of  not  having  wondered  how  Dr.  Parker  would 
handle  this  or  that  situation.  He  was  simply  immense 
to  me  at  all  times,  and  if  love  of  a  man-to-man  kind 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  95 

does  exist,  then  I  truthfully  can  say  that  I  had  that 
love  for  him." 

Of  the  letters  received  from  students  of  those  years 
I  should  like  to  quote  a  passage  here  and  there. 

An  aviator  in  France  writes:  "There  was  no  man 
like  him  in  my  college  life.  Believe  me,  he  has  been  a 
figure  in  all  we  do  over  here,  —  we  who  knew  him,  — 
and  a  reason  for  our  doing,  too.  His  loss  is  so  great 
to  all  of  us !  .  .  .  He  was  so  fine  he  will  always  push  us 
on  to  finding  the  truth  about  things.  That  was  his 
great  spark,  was  n't  it?" 

From  a  second  lieutenant  in  France:  "I  loved  Carl. 
He  was  far  more  to  me  than  just  a  friend  —  he  was 
father,  brother,  and  friend  all  in  one.  He  influenced,  as 
you  know,  everything  I  have  done  since  I  knew  him 
—  for  it  was  his  enthusiasm  which  has  been  the  force 
which  determined  the  direction  of  my  work.  And 
the  bottom  seemed  to  have  fallen  out  of  my  whole 
scheme  of  things  when  the  word  just  came  to  me." 

From  one  of  the  young  officers  at  Camp  Lewis: 

"When   E told   me   about   Carl's   illness   last 

Wednesday,  I  resolved  to  go  and  see  him  the  coming 
week-end.  I  carried  out  my  resolution,  only  to  find 
that  I  could  see  neither  him  nor  you.  [This  was  the 
day  before  Carl's  death.]  It  was  a  great  disappoint- 
ment to  me,  so  I  left  some  flowers  and  went  away.  . . . 
I  simply  could  not  leave  Seattle  without  seeing  Carl 
once  more,  so  I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  out  to  the 
undertaker's.  The  friends  I  was  with  discouraged  the 
idea,  but  it  was  too  strong  within  me.  There  was  a 
void  within  me  which  could  only  be  filled  by  seeing 


96  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

my  friend  once  more.  I  went  out  there  and  stood  by 
his  side  for  quite  a  while.  I  recalled  the  happy  days 
spent  with  him  on  the  campus.  I  thought  of  his  kind- 
liness, his  loyalty,  his  devotion.  Carl  Parker  shall 
always  occupy  a  place  in  the  recesses  of  my  memory 
as  a  true  example  of  nobility.  It  was  hard  for  me  to 
leave,  but  I  felt  much  better." 

From  one  of  his  women  students:  "Always  from 
the  first  day  when  I  knew  him  he  seemed  to  give  me 
a  joy  of  life  and  an  inspiration  to  work  which  no  other 
person  or  thing  has  ever  given  me.  And  it  is  a  joy  and 
an  inspiration  I  shall  always  keep.  I  seldom  come  to 
a  stumbling-block  in  my  work  that  I  don't  stop  to 
wonder  what  Carl  Parker  would  do  were  he  solving 
that  problem." 

Another  letter  I  have  chosen  to  quote  from  was 
written  by  a  former  student  now  in  Paris:  — 

"We  could  not  do  without  him.  He  meant  too 
much  to  us.  ...  I  come  now  as  a  young  friend  to  put 
myself  by  your  side  a  moment  and  to  try  to  share  a 
great  sorrow  which  is  mine  almost  as  much  as  it  is 
yours.  For  I  am  sure  that,  after  you,  there  were  few 
indeed  who  loved  Carl  as  much  as  I. 

"Oh,  I  am  remembering  a  hundred  things!  —  the 
first  day  I  found  you  both  in  the  little  house  on  Hearst 
Avenue  —  the  dinners  we  used  to  have  .  .  .  the  times 
I  used  to  come  on  Sunday  morning  to  find  you  both, 
and  the  youngsters  —  the  day  just  before  I  graduated 
when  mother  and  I  had  lunch  at  your  house  .  .  .  and, 
finally,  that  day  I  left  you,  and  you  said,  both  of  you, 
*  Don't  come  back  without  seeing  some  of  the  cities 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  97 

of  Europe.*   I'd  have  missed  some  of  the  cities  to 
have  come  back  and  found  you  both. 

"Some  of  him  we  can't  keep.  The  quaint  old  gray 
twinkle  —  the  quiet,  half-impudent,  wholly  confident 
poise  with  which  he  defied  all  comers — that  inexhaust- 
ible and  incorrigible  fund  of  humor  —  those  we  lose. 
No  use  to  whine  —  we  lose  it;  write  it  off,  gulp,  go  on. 

"But  other  things  we  keep,  none  the  less.  The 
stimulus  and  impetus  and  inspiration  are  not  lost, 
and  shall  not  be.  No  one  has  counted  the  youngsters 
he  has  hauled,  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck  as  often  as 
not,  out  of  a  slough  of  middle-class  mediocrity,  and 
sent  careering  off  into  some  welter  or  current  of  ideas 
and  conjecture.  Carl  did  n't  know  where  they  would 
end,  and  no  more  do  any  of  the  rest  of  us.  He  knew  he 
loathed  stagnation.  And  he  stirred  things  and  stirred 
people.  And  the  end  of  the  stirring  is  far  from  being 
yet  known  or  realized." 

I  like,  too,  a  story  one  of  the  Regents  told  me.  He 
ran  into  a  student  from  his  home  town  and  asked  how 
his  work  at  the  University  was  going.  The  boy  looked 

at  him  eagerly  and  said,  "  Mr.  M ,  I  've  been  bom 

again!  ["  Born  again  "  —  those  were  his  very  words.] 
I  entered  college  thinking  of  it  as  a  preparation  for 
making  more  money  when  I  got  out.  I  've  come  across 
a  man  named  Parker  in  the  faculty  and  am  taking 
everything  he  gives.  Now  I  know  I'd  be  selling  out 
my  life  to  make  money  the  goal.  I  know  now,  too, 
that  whatever  money  I  do  make  can  never  be  at  the 
expense  of  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  any  other 
human  being." 


CHAPTER  XI 

About  this  time  we  had  a  friend  come  into  our  lives 
who  was  destined  to  mean  great  things  to  the  Parkers 
—  Max  Rosenberg.  He  had  heard  Carl  lecture  once 
or  twice,  had  met  him  through  our  good  friend  Dr. 
Brown,  and  a  warm  friendship  had  developed.  In 
the  spring  of  1916  we  were  somewhat  tempted  by  a 
call  to  another  University  —  $1700  was  really  not  a 
fortune  to  live  on,  and  to  make  both  ends  meet  and 
prepare  for  the  June-Bug's  coming,  Carl  had  to  use 
every  spare  minute  lecturing  outside.  It  discouraged 
him,  for  he  had  no  time  left  to  read  and  study.  So 
when  a  call  came  that  appealed  to  us  in  several  ways, 
besides  paying  a  much  larger  salary,  we  seriously 
considered  it.  About  then  "Uncle  Max"  rang  up  from 
San  Francisco  and  asked  Carl  to  see  him  before  an- 
swering this  other  University,  and  an  appointment 
was  made  for  that  afternoon. 

I  was  to  be  at  a  formal  luncheon,  but  told  Carl  to 
be  sure  to  call  me  up  the  minute  he  left  Max  —  we 
wondered  so  hard  what  he  might  mean.  And  what  he 
did  mean  was  the  most  wonderful  idea  that  ever 
entered  a  friend's  head.  He  felt  that  Carl  had  a  real 
message  to  give  the  world,  and  that  he  should  write 
a  book.  He  also  realized  that  it  was  impossible  to  find 
time  for  a  book  under  the  circumstances.  Therefore 
he  proposed  that  Carl  should  take  a  year's  leave  of 
absence  and  let  Max  finance  him  —  not  only  just 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  99 

finance  him,  but  allow  for  a  trip  throughout  the  East 
for  him  to  get  the  inspiration  of  contact  with  other 
men  in  his  field;  and  enough  withal,  so  that  there 
should  be  no  skimping  anywhere  and  the  little  family 
at  home  should  have  everything  they  needed. 

It  seemed  to  us  something  too  wonderful  to  believe. 
I  remember  going  back  to  that  lunch-table,  after  Carl 
had  telephoned  me  only  the  broadest  details,  wonder- 
ing if  it  were  the  same  world.  That  Book  —  we  had 
dreamed  of  writing  that  book  for  so  many  years  — 
the  material  to  be  in  it  changed  continually,  but  al- 
ways the  longing  to  write,  and  no  time,  no  hopes  of 
any  chance  to  do  it.  And  the  June-Bug  coming,  and 
more  need  for  money  —  hence  more  outside  lectures 
than  ever.  I  have  no  love  for  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia when  I  think  of  that  $1700.  (I  quote  from  an 
article  that  came  out  in  New  York:  "  It  is  an  astound- 
ing fact  which  his  University  must  explain,  that  he, 
with  his  great  abilities  as  teacher  and  leader,  his  wide 
travel  and  experience  and  training,  received  from  the 
University  in  his  last  year  of  service  there  a  salary  of 
$1700  a  year!  The  West  does  not  repay  commercial 
genius  like  that.")  For  days  after  Max's  offer  we 
hardly  knew  we  were  on  earth.  It  was  so  very  much 
the  most  wonderful  thing  that  could  have  happened 
to  us.  Our  friends  had  long  ago  adopted  the  phrase 
"just  Parker  luck,"  and  here  was  an  example  if  there 
ever  was  one.  "Parker  luck"  indeed  it  was! 

This  all  meant,  to  get  the  fulness  out  of  it,  that 
Carl  must  make  a  trip  of  at  least  four  months  in  the 
East.  At  first  he  planned  to  return  in  the  middle  of  it 


100  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

and  then  go  back  again;  but  somehow  four  months 
spent  as  we  planned  it  out  for  him  seemed  so  abso- 
lutely marvelous,  —  an  opportunity  of  a  lifetime,  — 
that  joy  for  him  was  greater  in  my  soul  than  the 
dread  of  a  separation.  It  was  different  from  any  other 
parting  we  had  ever  had.  I  was  bound  that  I  would 
not  shed  a  single  tear  when  I  saw  him  off,  even  though 
it  meant  the  longest  time  apart  we  had  experienced. 
Three  nights  before  he  left,  being  a  bit  blue  about 
things,  for  all  our  fine  talk,  we  prowled  down  our  hill- 
side and  found  our  way  to  our  first  Charlie  Chaplin 
film.  We  laughed  until  we  cried  —  we  really  did.  So 
that  night,  seeing  Carl  off,  we  went  over  that  Charlie 
Chaplin  film  in  detail  and  let  ourselves  think  and  talk 
of  nothing  else.  We  laughed  all  over  again,  and  Carl 
went  off  laughing,  and  I  waved  good-bye  laughing. 
Bless  that  Charlie  Chaplin  film! 

It  would  not  take  much  imagination  to  realize 
what  that  trip  meant  to  Carl  —  and  through  him  to 
me.  From  the  time  he  first  felt  the  importance  of  the 
application  of  modern  psychology  to  the  study  of 
economics,  he  became  more  and  more  intellectually 
isolated  from  his  colleagues.  They  had  no  interest  in, 
no  sympathy  for,  no  understanding  of,  what  he  was 
driving  at.  From  May,  when  college  closed,  to  Octo- 
ber, when  he  left  for  the  East,  he  read  prodigiously. 
He  had  a  mind  for  assimilation  —  he  knew  where 
to  store  every  new  piece  of  knowledge  he  acquired, 
and  kept  thereby  an  orderly  brain.  He  read  more 
than  a  book  a  week:  everything  he  could  lay  hands 
on  in  psychology,  anthropology,  biology,  philosophy. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  loi 

psycho-analysis  —  every  field  which  he  felt  contrib- 
uted to  his  own  growing  conviction  that  orthodox 
economics  had  served  its  day.  And  how  he  gloried  in 
that  reading!  It  had  been  years  since  he  had  been 
able  to  do  anything  but  just  keep  up  with  his  daily 
lectures,  such  was  the  pressure  he  was  working  under. 
Bless  his  heart,  he  was  always  coming  across  some- 
thing that  was  just  too  good  to  hold  in,  and  I  would 
hear  him  come  upstairs  two  steps  at  a  time,  bolt  into 
the  kitchen,  and  say:  "Just  listen  to  this!"  And  he 
would  read  an  extract  from  some  new-found  treasure 
that  would  make  him  glow. 

But  outside  of  myself,  —  and  I  was  only  able  to 
keep  up  with  him  by  the  merest  skimmings,  —  and 
one  or  two  others  at  most,  there  was  no  one  who 
understood  what  he  was  driving  at.  As  his  reading 
and  convictions  grew,  he  waxed  more  and  more  out- 
raged at  the  way  Economics  was  handled  in  his  own 
University.  He  saw  student  after  student  having 
every  ounce  of  intellectual  curiosity  ground  out  of 
them  by  a  process  of  economic  education  that  would 
stultify  a  genius.  Any  student  who  continued  his 
economic  studies  did  so  in  spite  of  the  introductory 
work,  not  because  he  had  had  one  little  ounce  of 
enthusiasm  aroused  in  his  soul.  Carl  would  walk  the 
floor  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  when  kindred 
spirits  —  especially  students  who  had  gone  through 
the  mill,  and  as  seniors  or  graduates  looked  back 
outraged  at  certain  courses  they  had  had  to  flounder 
through  —  brought  up  the  subject  of  Economics  at 
the  University  of  California. 


102  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Off  he  went  then  on  his  pilgrimage,  —  his  Research 
Magnificent,  —  absolutely  unknown  to  almost  every 
man  he  hoped  to  see  before  his  return.  The  first  stop 
he  made  was  at  Columbia,  Missouri,  to  see  his  idol 
Veblen.  He  quaked  a  bit  beforehand,  —  had  heard 
Veblen  might  not  see  him,  —  but  the  second  letter 
from  Missouri  began,  "Just  got  in  after  thirteen 
hours  with  Veblen.  It  went  wonderfully  and  I  am 
tickled  to  death.  He  O.K.s  my  idea  entirely  and  said 
I  could  not  go  wrong.  .  .  .  Gee,  but  it  is  some  grand 
experience  to  go  up  against  him." 

In  the  next  letter  he  told  of  a  graduate  student  who 
came  out  to  get  his  advice  regarding  a  thesis-subject 
in  labor.  "  I  told  him  to  go  to  his  New  England  home 
and  study  the  reaction  of  machine-industry  on  the 
life  of  the  town.  That  is  a  typical  Veblen  subject.  It 
scared  the  student  to  death,  and  Veblen  chuckled 
over  my  advice."  In  Wisconsin  he  was  especially 
anxious  to  see  Guyer.  Of  his  visit  with  him  he  wrote : 
"It  was  a  whiz  of  a  session.  He  is  just  my  meat."  At 
Yale  he  saw  Keller.  "He  is  a  wonder  and  is  going  to 
do  a  lot  for  me  in  criticism." 

Then  began  the  daily  letters  from  New  York,  and 
every  single  letter  —  not  only  from  New  York  but 
from  every  other  place  he  happened  to  be  in:  Balti- 
more, Philadelphia,  Cambridge  —  told  of  at  least  one 
intellectual  Event  —  with  a  capital  E  —  a  day.  No 
one  ever  lived  who  had  a  more  stimulating  experience. 
Friends  would  ask  me :  "What  is  the  news  from  Carl?  " 
And  I  would  just  gasp.  Every  letter  was  so  full  of  the 
new  influences  coming  into  his  life,  that  it  was  im- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  103 

possible  to  give  even  an  idea  of  the  history  in  the  mak- 
ing that  was  going  on  with  the  Parkers. 

In  the  first  days  in  New  York  he  saw  T.  H.  Morgan. 
"I  just  walked  in  on  him  emd  introduced  myself 
baldly,  and  he  is  a  corker.  A  remarkable  talker,  with 
a  mind  like  a  flash.  I  am  to  see  him  again.  To-morrow 
will  be  a  big  day  for  me  —  I  '11  see  Hollingworth,  and 
very  probably  Thorndike,  and  I  '11  know  then  some- 
thing of  what  I'll  get  out  of  New  York."  Next  day: 
"Called  on  Hollingworth  to-day.  He  gave  me  some 
invaluable  data  and  opinions.  .  .  .  To-morrow  I  see 
Thorndike."  And  the  next  day:  "I'm  so  joyful  and 
excited  over  Thorndike.  He  was  so  enthusiastic  over 
my  work.  .  .  .  He  at  once  had  brass-tack  ideas.  Said 
I  was  right  —  that  strikes  usually  started  because  of 
small  and  very  human  violations  of  man's  innate  dis- 
positions." 

Later  he  called  on  Professor  W.  C.  Mitchell.  "He 
went  into  my  thesis  very  fully  and  is  all  for  it.  Pro- 
fessor Mitchell  knows  more  than  any  one  the  impor- 
tance of  psychology  to  economics  and  he  is  all  for  my 
study.  Gee,  but  I  get  excited  after  such  a  session. 
I  bet  I'll  get  out  a  real  book,  my  girl!" 

After  one  week  in  New  York  he  wrote:  "The  trip 
has  paid  for  itself  now,  and  I  'm  dead  eager  to  view 
the  time  when  I  begin  my  writing."  Later:  "Just  got 
in  from  a  six-hour  session  with  the  most  important 
group  of  employers  in  New  York.  I  sat  in  on  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Building  Trades  Board  where  labor  dele- 
gates and  employers  appeared.  After  two  hours  of  it 
(awfully  interesting)  the  Board  took  me  to  dinner  and 


104  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

we  talked  labor  stuflf  till  ten-thirty.  Gee,  it  was  fine, 
and  I  got  oceans  of  stuff." 

Then  came  Boas,  and  more  visits  with  Thorndike. 
"To-night  I  put  in  six  hours  with  Thorndike,  and  am 
pleased  plum  to  death.  .  .  .  Under  his  friendly  stimu- 
lus I  developed  a  heap  of  new  ideas;  and  say,  wait 
till  I  begin  writing!  I  '11  have  ten  volumes  at  the  pres- 
ent rate.  .  .  .  This  visit  with  Thorndike  was  worth 
the  whole  trip."  (And  in  turn  Thorndike  wrote  me: 
"The  days  that  he  and  I  spent  together  in  New  York 
talking  of  these  things  are  one  of  my  finest  memories 
and  I  appreciate  the  chance  that  let  me  meet  him.") 
He  wrote  from  the  Harvard  Club,  where  Walter  Lipp- 
mann  put  him  up:  "The  Dad  is  a  'prominent  club- 
man.' Just  lolled  back  at  lunch,  in  a  room  with  ani- 
mals (stuffed)  all  around  the  walls,  and  waiters  flying 
about,  and  a  ceiling  up  a  mile.  Gee!"  Later:  "I  just 
had  a  most  wonderful  visit  with  the  Director  of  the 
National  Committee  for  Mental  Hygiene,  Dr.  Solman, 
and  he  is  a  wiz,  a  wiz!" 

Next  day:  "Had  a  remarkable  visit  with  Dr. 
Gregory  this  A.M.  He  is  one  of  the  greatest  psychia- 
trists in  New  York  and  up  on  balkings,  business  ten- 
sion, and  the  mental  effect  of  monotonous  work.  He 
was  so  worked  up  over  my  explanation  of  unrest  (a 
mental  status)  through  instinct-balkings  other  than 
sex,  that  he  asked  if  I  would  consider  using  his  big 
psychopathic  ward  as  a  laboratory  field  for  my  own 
work.  Then  he  dated  me  up  for  a  luncheon  at  which 
three  of  the  biggest  mental  specialists  in  New  York 
will  be  present,  to  talk  over  the  manner  in  which 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  105 

psychiatry  will  aid  my  research!  I  can't  say  how 
tickled  I  am  over  his  attitude."  Next  letter:  "At  ten 
reached  Dr.  Pierce  Bailey's,  the  big  psychiatrist,  and 
for  an  hour  and  a  half  we  talked,  and  I  was  simply 
tickled  to  death.  He  is  really  a  wonder  and  I  was  very 
enthused.  .  .  .  Before  leaving  he  said:  'You  come  to 
dinner  Friday  night  here  and  I  will  have  Dr.  Paton 
from  Princeton  and  I  '11  get  in  some  more  to  meet  you.* 
.  .  .  Then  I  beat  it  to  the  '  New  Republic  *  offices,  and 
sat  down  to  dinner  with  the  staff  plus  Robert  Bru^re, 
and  the  subject  became  'What  is  a  labor  policy?*  The 
Dad,  he  did  his  share,  he  did,  and  had  a  great  row 
with  Walter  Lippmann  and  Bruere.  Walter  Lippmann 
said:  'This  won*t  do  —  you  have  made  me  doubt  a 
lot  of  things.  You  come  to  lunch  with  me  Friday  at 
the  Harvard  Club  and  we'll  thrash  it  all  out.*  Says  I, 
'AH  right!'  Then  says  Croly,  'This  won*t  do;  we'll 
have  a  dinner  here  the  following  Monday  night,  and 
I'll  get  Felix  Frankfurter  down  from  Boston,  and 
we'll  thrash  it  out  some  more!'  Says  I,  'AH  right!' 
And  says  Mr.  Croly,  private,  'You  come  to  dinner 
with  us  on  Sunday!'  —  'AH  right,*  sez  Dad.  Dr. 
Gregory  has  me  with  Dr.  Solman  on  Monday,  and 
Harry  Overstreet  on  Wednesday,  Thomdike  on  Sat- 
urday, and  gee,  but  I  *11  beat  it  for  New  Haven  on 
Thursday,  or  I'll  die  of  up-torn  brain.*' 

Are  you  realizing  what  this  all  meant  to  my  Carl  — 
until  recently  reading  and  pegging  away  unencour- 
aged  in  his  basement  study  up  on  the  Berkeley  hHls? 

The  next  day  he  heard  Roosevelt  at  the  Ritz- 
Carlton,  "Then  I  watched  that  remarkable  man 


io6  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

wind  the  crowd  almost  around  his  finger.  It  was 
great,  and  pure  psychology ;  and  say,  fool  women  and 
some  fool  men;  but  T.R.  went  on  blithely  as  if  every 
one  was  an  intellectual  giant."  That  night  a  dinner 
with  Winston  Churchill.  Next  letter:  "Had  a  simply 
superb  talk  with  HoUingworth  for  two  and  a  half 
hours  this  afternoon.  .  .  .  The  dinner  was  the  four 
biggest  psychiatrists  in  New  York  and  Dad.  Made  me 
simply  yell,  it  did.  ...  It  was  for  my  book  simply 
superb.  All  is  going  so  wonderfully."  Next  day:  "Now 
about  the  Thomdike  dinner:  it  was  grand.  ...  I  can't 
tell  you  how  much  these  talks  are  maturing  my  ideas 
about  the  book.  I  think  in  a  different  plane  and  am 
certain  that  my  ideas  are  surer.  There  have  come  up 
a  lot  of  odd  problems  touching  the  conflict,  so-called, 
between  intelligence  and  instinct,  and  these  I  'm  get- 
ting thrashed  out  grandly."  After  the  second  "  New 
Republic"  dinner  he  wrote:  "Lots  of  important  people 
there  .  .  .  Felix  Frankfurter,  two  judges,  and  the  two 
Goldmarks,  Pierce  Bailey,  etc.,  and  the  whole  staff. 
.  .  .  Had  been  all  day  with  Dr.  Gregory  and  other 
psychiatrists  and  had  met  Police  Commissioner 
Woods  ...  a  wonderfully  rich  day.  ...  I  must  run 
for  a  date  with  Professor  Robinson  and  then  to  meet 
Howe,  the  Immigration  Commissioner." 

Then  a  trip  to  Ellis  Island,  and  at  midnight  that 
same  date  he  wrote:  "Just  had  a  most  truly  remark- 
able —  eight- thirty  to  twelve  —  visit  with  Professor 
Robinson,  he  who  wrote  that  European  history  we 
bought  in  Germany."  Then  a  trip  to  Philadelphia, 
being  dined  and  entertained  by  various  members  oi 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  107 

the  Wharton  School  faculty.  Then  the  Yale-Harvard 
game,  followed  by  three  days  and  two  nights  in  the 
psychopathic  ward  at  Sing  Sing.  "I  found  in  the 
psychiatrist  at  the  prison  a  true  wonder  —  Dr.  Glueck. 
He  has  a  viewpoint  on  instincts  which  differs  from 
any  one  that  I  have  met."  The  next  day,  back  in 
New  York:  "Just  had  a  most  remarkable  visit  with 
Thomas  Mott  Osborne."  Later  in  the  same  day:  "Just 
had  an  absolutely  grand  visit  and  lunch  with  Walter 
Lippmann  ...  it  was  about  the  best  talk  with  regard 
to  my  book  that  I  have  had  in  the  East.  He  is  an 
intellectual  wonder  and  a  big,  good-looking,  friendly 
boy.  I  'm  for  him  a  million." 

Then  his  visit  with  John  Dewey.  "I  put  up  to  him 
my  regular  questions  —  the  main  one  being  the  im- 
portance of  the  conflict  between  MacDougall  and 
the  Freudians.  .  .  .  He  was  cordiality  itself.  I  am 
expecting  red-letter  days  with  him.  My  knowledge  of 
the  subject  is  increasing  fast."  Then  a  visit  with 
Irving  Fisher  at  New  Haven.  The  next  night  "was 
simply  remarkable."  Irving  Fisher  took  him  to  a 
banquet  in  New  York,  in  honor  of  some  French  digni- 
taries, with  President  Wilson  present — "at  seven 
dollars  a  plate!"  As  to  President  Wilson,  "He  was 
simply  great  —  almost  the  greatest,  in  fact  is  the 
greatest,  speaker  I  have  ever  heard." 

Then  a  run  down  to  Cambridge,  every  day  crammed 
to  the  edges.  "Had  breakfast  with  Felix  Frankfurter. 
He  has  the  grand  spirit  and  does  so  finely  appreciate 
what  my  subject  means.  He  walked  me  down  to  see 
a  friend  of  his,  Laski,  intellectually  a  sort  of  marvel 


lo8  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

' — knows  psychology  and  philosophy  cold  —  grand 
talk.  Then  I  called  on  Professor  Gay  and  he  dated 
me  for  a  dinner  to-morrow  night.  Luncheon  given  to 
me  by  Professor  Taussig  —  that  was  fine.  .  .  .  Then 
I  flew  to  see  E.  B.  Holt  for  an  hour  [his  second  visit 
there].  Had  a  grand  visit,  and  then  at  six  was  taken 
with  Gay  to  dinner  with  the  visiting  Deans  at  the 
Boston  Harvard  Club."  (Mr.  Holt  wrote:  "I  met 
Mr.  Parker  briefly  in  the  winter  of  1916-17,  briefly, 
but  so  very  delightfully!  I  felt  that  he  was  an  ally  and 
a  brilliant  one.") 

I  give  these  many  details  because  you  must  appreci- 
ate what  this  new  wonder-world  meant  to  a  man  who 
was  considered  nobody  much  by  his  own  University. 

Then  one  day  a  mere  card:  "This  is  honestly  a  day 
in  which  no  two  minutes  of  free  time  exist  —  so 
superbly  grand  has  it  gone  and  so  fruitful  for  the 
book  —  the  best  of  all  yet.  One  of  the  biggest  men  in 
the  United  States  (Cannon  of  Harvard)  asked  me  to 
arrange  my  thesis  to  be  analyzed  by  a  group  of  ex- 
perts in  the  field."  Next  day  he  wrote:  "Up  at  six- 
forty-five,  and  at  seven-thirty  I  was  at  Professor 
Cannon's.  I  put  my  thesis  up  to  him  strong  and  got 
one  of  the  most  encouraging  and  stimulating  recep- 
tions I  have  had.  He  took  me  in  to  meet  his  wife,  and 
said:  'This  young  man  has  stimulated  and  aroused 
me  greatly.  We  must  get  his  thesis  formally  before  a 
group.'"  Later,  from  New  York:  "From  seven-thirty 
to  eleven- thirty  I  argued  with  Dr.  A.  A.  Brill,  who 
translated  all  of  Freud! ! !  and  it  was  simply  wonderful. 
I  came  home  at  twelve  and  wrote  up  a  lot." 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  109 

Later  he  went  to  Washington  with  Walter  Lipp- 
mann.  They  ran  into  Colonel  House  on  the  train,  and 
talked  foreign  relations  for  two  and  a  half  hours.  "  My 
hair  stood  on  end  at  the  importance  of  what  he  said." 
From  Washington  he  wrote:  "Am  having  one  of  the 
Great  Experiences  of  my  young  life."  Hurried  full 
days  in  Philadelphia,  with  a  most  successful  talk 
before  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Political  and 
Social  Science  Conference  ("Successful,"  was  the 
report  to  me  later  of  several  who  were  present) ,  and 
extreme  kindness  and  hospitality  from  all  the  Whar- 
ton group.  He  rushed  to  Baltimore,  and  at  midnight, 
December  31,  he  wrote:  "  I  had  from  eleven-thirty  to 
one  P.M.  an  absolute  supergrand  talk  with  Adolph 
Meyer  and  John  Watson.  He  is  a  grand  young  south- 
erner and  simply  knows  his  behavioristic  psychology 
in  a  way  to  make  one's  hair  stand  up.  We  talked  my 
plan  clear  out  and  they  are  enthusiastic.  .  .  .  Things 
are  going  grandly."  Next  day:  "Just  got  in  from  din- 
ner with  Adolph  Meyer.  He  is  simply  a  wonder.  .  .  . 
At  nine-thirty  I  watched  Dr.  Campbell  give  a  girl 
Freudian  treatment  for  a  suicide  mania.  She  had  been 
a  worker  in  a  straw-hat  factory  and  had  a  true  indus- 
trial psychosis  —  the  kind  I  am  looking  for."  Then, 
later:  "There  is  absolutely  no  doubt  that  the  trip 
has  been  my  making.  I  have  learned  a  lot  of  back- 
ground, things,  and  standards,  that  will  put  their 
stamp  on  my  development." 

Almost  every  letter  would  tell  of  some  one  visit 
which  "alone  was  worth  the  trip  East."  Around 
Christmastime  home-longings  got  extra  strong  —  he 


no  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

wrote  five  letters  in  three  days.  I  really  wish  I  could 
quote  some  from  them  —  where  he  said  for  instance: 
"My,  but  it  is  good  for  a  fellow  to  be  with  his  family 
and  awful  to  be  away  from  it."  And  again:  "I  want 
to  be  interrupted,  I  do.  I  'm  all  for  that.  I  remember 
how  Jim  and  Nand  used  to  come  into  my  study  for  a 
kiss  and  then  go  hastily  out  upon  urgent  affairs.  I  'm 
for  that.  .  .  .  I  've  got  my  own  folk  and  they  make  the 
rest  of  the  world  thin  and  pale.  The  blessedness  of 
babies  is  beyond  words,  but  the  blessedness  of  a  wife 
is  such  that  one  can't  start  in  on  it." 

Then  came  the  Economic  Convention  at  Columbus 
—  letters  too  full  to  begin  to  quote  from  them.  "  I  *m 
simply  having  the  time  of  my  life  .  .  .  every  one  is 
here."  In  a  talk  when  he  was  asked  to  fill  in  at  the 
last  minute,  he  presented  "two  arguments  why  trade- 
unions  alone  could  not  be  depended  on  to  bring  desir- 
able change  in  working  conditions  through  collective 
bargaining:  one,  because  they  were  numerically  so 
few  in  contrast  to  the  number  of  industrial  workers, 
and,  two,  because  the  reforms  about  to  be  demanded 
were  technical,  medical,  and  generally  of  scientific 
character,  and  skilled  experts  employed  by  the  state 
would  be  necessary." 

Back  again  in  New  York,  he  wrote:  "It  just  raises 
my  hair  to  feel  I  'm  not  where  a  Dad  ought  to  be.  My 
blessed,  precious  family!  I  tell  you  there  isn't  any- 
thing in  this  world  like  a  wife  and  babies  and  I  'm  for 
that  life  that  puts  me  close.  I  'm  near  smart  enough 
to  last  a  heap  of  years.  Though  when  I  see  how  my 
trip  makes  me  feel  alive  in  my  head  and  enthusiastic, 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  in 

I  know  it  has  been  worth  while.  ..."  Along  in  Jan- 
uary he  worked  his  thesis  up  in  writing.  "Last  night 
I  read  my  paper  to  the  Robinsons  after  the  dinner  and 
they  had  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Dewey  there.  A  most 
superb  and  grand  discussion  followed,  the  Deweys 
going  home  at  eleven-thirty  and  I  stayed  to  talk  to 
one  A.M.  I  slept  dreaming  wildly  of  the  discussion.  .  .  . 
Then  had  an  hour  and  a  half  with  Dewey  on  certain 
moot  points.  That  talk  was  even  more  superb  and 
resultful  to  me  and  I  *m  just  about  ready  to  quit.  .  .  . 
I  need  now  to  write  and  read." 

I  quote  a  bit  here  and  there  from  a  paper  writ- 
ten in  New  York  in  191 7,  because,  though  hurriedly 
put  together  and  never  meant  for  publication,  it  de- 
scribes Carl's  newer  approach  to  Economics  and  es- 
pecially to  the  problem  of  Labor. 

"In  1 9 14  I  was  asked  to  investigate  a  riot  among 
2800  migratory  hop-pickers  in  California  which  had 
resulted  in  five  deaths,  many-fold  more  wounded, 
hysteria,  fear,  and  a  strange  orgy  of  irresponsible  per- 
secution by  the  county  authorities  —  and,  on  the 
side  of  the  laborers,  conspiracy,  barn-burnings, 
sabotage,  and  open  revolutionary  propaganda.  I  had 
been  teaching  labor-problems  for  a  year,  and  had 
studied  them  in  two  American  universities,  under 
Sidney  Webb  in  London,  and  in  four  universities  of 
Germany.  I  found  that  I  had  no  fundamentals  which 
could  be  called  good  tools  with  which  to  begin  my 
analysis  of  this  riot.  And  I  felt  myself  merely  a  con- 
ventional if  astonished  onlooker  before  the  theoreti- 
cally  abnormal   but   manifestly   natural   emotional 


112  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

activity  which  swept  over  California.  After  what  must 
have  been  a  most  usual  intellectual  cycle  of,  first,  help- 
lessness, then  conventional  cataloguing,  some  ration- 
alizing, some  moralizing,  and  an  extensive  feeling  of 
shallowness  and  inferiority,  I  called  the  job  done. 

"By  accident,  somewhat  later,  I  was  loaned  two 
books  of  Freud,  and  I  felt  after  the  reading,  that  I 
had  found  a  scientific  approach  which  might  lead  to 
the  discovery  of  important  fundamentals  for  a  study 
of  unrest  and  violence.  Under  this  stimulation,  I  read, 
during  a  year  and  a  half,  general  psychology,  physi- 
ology and  anthropology,  eugenics,  all  the  special 
material  I  could  find  on  Mendelism,  works  on  mental 
hygiene,  feeblemindedness,  insanity,  evolution  of 
morals  and  character,  and  finally  found  a  resting- 
place  in  a  field  which  seems  to  be  best  designated  as 
Abnormal  and  Behavioristic  Psychology.  My  quest 
throughout  this  experience  seemed  to  be  pretty  stead- 
ily a  search  for  those  irreducible  fundamentals  which 
I  could  use  in  getting  a  technically  decent  opinion 
on  that  riot.  In  grand  phrases,  I  was  searching  for  the 
Scientific  Standard  of  Value  to  be  used  in  analyzing 
Human  Behavior. 

"Economics  (which  officially  holds  the  analysis  of 
labor-problems)  has  been  allowed  to  devote  itself 
almost  entirely  to  the  production  of  goods,  and  to 
neglect  entirely  the  consumption  of  goods  and  human 
organic  welfare.  The  lip-homage  given  by  orthodox 
economics  to  the  field  of  consumption  seems  to  be 
inspired  merely  by  the  feeling  that  disaster  might 
overcome  production  if  workers  were  starved  or  busi- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  113 

ness  men  discouraged.  .  .  .  So,  while  official  economic 
science  tinkers  at  its  transient  institutions  which 
flourish  in  one  decade  and  pass  out  in  the  next,  abnor- 
mal and  behavioristic  psychology,  physiology,  psychi- 
atry, are  building  in  their  laboratories,  by  induction 
from  human  specimens  of  modern  economic  life,  a 
standard  of  human  values  and  an  elucidation  of 
behavior  fundamentals  which  alone  we  must  use  in 
our  legislative  or  personal  modification  of  modern 
civilization.  It  does  not  seem  an  overstatement  to 
say  that  orthodox  economics  has  cleanly  overlooked 
two  of  the  most  important  generalizations  about  hu- 
man life  which  can  be  phrased,  and  those  are,  — 

"That  human  life  is  dynamic,  that  change,  move- 
ment, evolution,  are  its  basic  characteristics. 

"That  self-expression,  and  therefore  freedom  of 
choice  and  movement,  are  prerequisites  to  a  satisfy- 
ing human  state." 

After  giving  a  description  of  the  instincts  he 
writes:  — 

"The  importance  to  me  of  the  following  description 
of  the  innate  tendencies  or  instincts  lies  in  their  rela- 
tion to  my  main  explanation  of  economic  behavior 
which  is,  — 

"First,  that  these  tendencies  are  persistent,  are 
far  less  warped  or  modified  by  the  environment  than 
we  believe;  that  they  function  quite  as  they  have  for 
several  hundred  thousand  years;  that  they,  as  mo- 
tives, in  their  various  normal  or  perverted  habit- 
form,  can  at  times  dominate  singly  the  entire  behavior, 
and  act  as  if  they  were  a  clear  character  dominant. 


114  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

"Secondly,  that  if  the  environment  through  any 
of  the  conventional  instruments  of  repression,  such 
as  religious  orthodoxy,  university  mental  discipline, 
economic  inferiority,  imprisonment,  physical  dis- 
figurement, —  such  as  short  stature,  hare-lip,  etc.,  — 
repress  the  full  psychological  expression  in  the  field 
of  these  tendencies,  then  a  psychic  revolt,  slipping 
into  abnormal  mental  functioning,  takes  place,  and 
society  accuses  the  revolutionist  of  being  either  will- 
fully inefficient,  alcoholic,  a  syndicalist,  supersensi- 
tive, an  agnostic,  or  insane." 

I  hesitate  somewhat  to  give  his  programme  as  set 
forth  in  this  paper.  I  have  already  mentioned  that  it 
was  written  in  the  spring  of  191 7,  and  hurriedly.  In 
referring  to  this  very  paper  in  a  letter  from  New  York, 
he  said,  "Of  course  it  is  written  in  part  to  call  out  com- 
ments, and  so  the  statements  are  strong  and  unmodi- 
fied." Let  that  fact,  then,  be  borne  in  mind,  and  also 
the  fact  that  he  may  have  altered  his  views  somewhat 
in  the  light  of  his  further  studies  and  readings  —  al- 
though again,  such  studies  may  only  have  strength- 
ened the  following  ideas.  I  cannot  now  trust  to  my 
memory  for  what  discussions  we  may  have  had  on 
the  subject. 

"Reform  means  a  militant  minority,  or,  to  follow 
Trotter,  a  small  Herd.  This  little  Herd  would  give 
council,  relief,  and  recuperation  to  its  members.  The 
members  of  the  Herd  will  be  under  merciless  fire  from 
the  convention-ridden  members  of  general  society. 
They  will  be  branded  outlaws,  radicals,  agnostics, 
impossible,  crazy.  They  will  be  lucky  to  be  out  of  jail 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  115 

most  of  the  time.  They  will  work  by  trial  and  study, 
gaining  wisdom  by  their  errors,  as  Sidney  Webb  and 
the  Fabians  did.  In  the  end,  after  a  long  time,  parts 
of  the  social  sham  will  collapse,  as  it  did  in  England, 
and  small  promises  will  become  milestones  of  progress. 

"From  where,  then,  can  we  gain  recruits  for  this 
minority?  Two  real  sources  seem  in  existence  —  the 
universities  and  the  field  of  mental-disease  specula- 
tion and  hospital  experiment.  The  one,  the  universi- 
ties, with  rare  if  wonderful  exceptions,  are  fairly  hope- 
less; the  other  is  not  only  rich  in  promise,  but  few 
realize  how  full  in  performance.  Most  of  the  literature 
which  is  gripping  that  great  intellectual  no-man's  land 
of  the  silent  readers,  is  basing  its  appeal,  and  its  story, 
on  the  rather  uncolored  and  bald  facts  which  come 
from  Freud,  Trotter,  Robinson,  Dewey,  E.  B.  Holt, 
Lippmann,  Morton  Prince,  Pierce,  Bailey,  Jung, 
Hart,  Overstreet,  Thomdike,  Campbell,  Meyer  and 
Watson,  Stanley  Hall,  Adler,  White.  It  is  from  this 
field  of  comparative  or  abnormal  psychology  that  the 
challenge  to  industrialism  and  the  programme  of 
change  will  come. 

"But  suppose  you  ask  me  to  be  concrete  and  give 
an  idea  of  such  a  programme. 

"Take  simply  the  beginning  of  life,  take  childhood, 
for  that  is  where  the  human  material  is  least  pro- 
tected, most  plastic,  and  where  most  injury  to-day 
is  done.  In  the  way  of  general  suggestion,  I  would  say, 
exclude  children  from  formal  disciplinary  life,  such 
as  that  of  all  industry  and  most  schools,  up  to  the 
age  of  eighteen.  After  excluding  them,  what  shall  we 


ii6  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

do  with  them?  Ask  John  Dewey,  I  suggest,  or  read 
his  'Schools  of  To-morrow,*  or  *  Democracy  and  Edu- 
cation.' It  means  tremendous,  unprecedented  money 
expense  to  ensure  an  active  trial  and  error-learning 
activity ;  a  chance  naturally  to  recapitulate  the  racial 
trial  and  error-learning  experience ;  a  study  and  prepa- 
ration of  those  periods  of  life  in  which  fall  the  ripening 
of  the  relatively  late  maturing  instincts;  a  general 
realizing  that  wisdom  can  come  only  from  experience, 
and  not  from  the  Book.  It  means  psychologically  cal- 
culated childhood  opportunity,  in  which  the  now 
stifled  instincts  of  leadership,  workmanship,  hero- 
worship,  hunting,  migration,  meditation,  sex,  could 
grow  and  take  their  foundation  place  in  the  psychic 
equipment  of  a  biologically  promising  human  being. 
To  illustrate  in  trivialities,  no  father,  with  knowledge 
of  the  meaning  of  the  universal  bent  towards  work- 
manship, would  give  his  son  a  puzzle  if  he  knew  of  the 
Mecano  or  Erector  toys,  and  no  father  would  give  the 
Mecano  if  he  had  grasped  the  educational  potential- 
ity of  the  gift  to  his  child  of  $io  worth  of  lumber  and 
a  set  of  good  carpenter's  tools.  There  is  now  enough 
loose  wisdom  around  devoted  to  childhood,  its  needed 
liberties  and  experiences,  both  to  give  the  children 
of  this  civilization  their  first  evolutionary  chance,  and 
to  send  most  teachers  back  to  the  farm. 

"In  the  age-period  of  i8  to  30  would  fall  that 
pseudo-educational  monstrosity,  the  undergraduate 
university,  and  the  degrading  popular  activities  of 
'beginning  a  business*  or  'picking  up  a  trade.*  Much 
money  must  be  spent  here.  Perhaps  few  fields  of  ac- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  117 

tivity  have  been  conventionalized  as  much  as  univer- 
sity education.  Here,  just  where  a  superficial  theorist 
would  expect  to  find  enthusiasm,  emancipated  minds, 
and  hope,  is  found  fear,  convention,  a  mean  instinct- 
life,  no  spirit  of  adventure,  little  curiosity,  in  general 
no  promise  of  preparedness.  No  wonder  philosophical 
idealism  flourishes  and  Darwin  is  forgotten. 

"The  first  two  years  of  University  life  should  be 
devoted  to  the  Science  of  Human  Behavior.  Much  of 
to-day's  biology,  zoology,  history,  if  it  is  interpretive, 
psychology,  if  it  is  behavioristic,  philosophy,  if  it  is 
pragmatic,  literature,  if  it  had  been  written  involun- 
tarily, would  find  its  place  here.  The  last  two  years 
could  be  profitably  spent  in  appraising  with  that  ulti- 
mate standard  of  value  gained  in  the  first  two  years, 
the  various  institutions  and  instruments  used  by 
civilized  man.  All  instruction  would  be  objective, 
scientific,  and  emancipated  from  convention  —  won- 
derful prospect! 

"In  industrial  labor  and  in  business  employments 
a  new  concept,  a  new  going  philosophy  must  be  un- 
reservedly accepted,  which  has,  instead  of  the  ideal 
of  forcing  the  human  beings  to  mould  their  habits  to 
assist  the  continued  existence  of  the  inherited  order 
of  things,  an  ideal  of  moulding  all  business  institu- 
tions and  ideas  of  prosperity  in  the  interests  of  scien- 
tific evolutionary  aims  and  large  human  pleasures. 
As  Pigou  has  said,  'Environment  has  its  children  as 
well  as  men.'  Monotony  in  labor,  tedium  in  ofiice- 
work,  time  spent  in  business  correspondence,  the  bore- 
dom of  running  a  sugar  refinery,  would  be  asked  to 


li8  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

step  before  the  bar  of  human  affairs  and  get  a  health 
standardization.  To-day  industry  produces  goods 
that  cost  more  than  they  are  worth,  are  consumed 
by  persons  who  are  degraded  by  the  consuming;  it 
is  destroying  permanently  the  raw-material  source 
which,  science  has  painfully  explained,  could  be  made 
inexhaustible.  Some  intellectual  revolution  must  come 
which  will  de-empha.s\ze  business  and  industry  and 
re-emphasize  most  other  ways  of  self-expression. 

"In  Florence,  around  1300,  Giotto  painted  a  pic- 
ture, and  the  day  it  was  to  be  hung  in  St.  Mark's,  the 
town  closed  down  for  a  holiday,  and  the  people,  with 
garlands  of  flowers  and  songs,  escorted  the  picture 
from  the  artist's  studio  to  the  church.  Three  weeks 
ago  I  stood,  in  company  with  500  silent,  sallow-faced 
men,  at  a  corner  on  Wall  Street,  a  cold  and  wet  corner, 
till  young  Morgan  issued  from  J.  P.  Morgan  &  Com- 
pany, and  walked  20  feet  to  his  carriage.  —  We  pro- 
duce, probably,  per  capita,  1000  times  more  in  weight 
of  ready-made  clothing,  Irish  lace,  artificial  flowers, 
terra  cotta,  movie-films,  telephones,  and  printed  mat- 
ter than  those  Florentines  did,  but  we  have,  with  our 
100,000,000  inhabitants,  yet  to  produce  that  little 
town,  her  Dante,  her  Andrea  del  Sarto,  her  Michael 
Angelo,  her  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  her  Savonarola,  her 
Giotto,  or  the  group  who  followed  Giotto's  picture. 
Florence  had  a  marvelous  energy  —  re-lease  experi- 
ence. All  our  industrial  formalism,  our  conventional- 
ized young  manhood,  our  schematized  universities, 
are  instruments  of  balk  and  thwart,  are  machines  to 
produce  protesting  abnormality,  to  block  efficiency. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  119 

So  the  problem  of  industrial  labor  is  one  with  the 
problem  of  the  discontented  business  man,  the  indif- 
ferent student,  the  unhappy  wife,  the  immoral  min- 
ister—  it  is  one  of  maladjustment  between  a  fixed 
human  nature  and  a  carelessly  ordered  world.  The 
result  is  suffering,  insanity,  racial-perversion,  and 
danger.  The  final  cure  is  gaining  acceptance  for  a  new 
standard  of  morality;  the  first  step  towards  this  is  to 
break  down  the  mores-inhibitions  to  free  experimental 
thinking." 

If  only  the  ti'me  had  been  longer  —  if  only  the  Book 
itself  could  have  been  finished!  For  he  had  a  great 
message.  He  was  writing  about  a  thousand  words  a 
day  on  it  the  following  summer,  at  Castle  Crags, 
when  the  War  Department  called  him  into  mediation 
work  and  not  another  word  did  he  ever  find  time  to 
add  to  it.  It  stands  now  about  one  third  done.  I  shall 
get  that  third  ready  for  publication,  together  with 
some  of  his  shorter  articles.  There  have  been  many 
who  have  offered  their  services  in  completing  the 
Book,  but  the  field  is  so  new,  Carl's  contribution  so 
unique,  that  few  men  in  the  whole  country  under- 
stand the  ground  enough  to  be  of  service.  It  was 
not  so  much  to  be  a  book  on  Labor  as  on  Labor- 
Psychology —  and  that  is  almost  an  unexplored  field. 


CHAPTER  XII 

Three  days  after  Carl  started  east,  on  his  arrival  in 
Seattle,  President  Suzzallo  called  him  to  the  Univer- 
sity of  Washington  as  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Economics  and  Dean  of  the  College  of  Business  Ad- 
ministration, his  work  to  begin  the  following  autumn. 
It  seemed  an  ideal  opportunity.  He  wrote:  "  I  am  very, 
very  attracted  by  Suzzallo.  ...  He  said  that  I  should 
be  allowed  to  plan  the  work  as  I  wished  and  call  the 
men  I  wished,  and  could  call  at  least  five.  I  cannot 
imagine  a  better  man  to  work  with  nor  a  better  propo- 
sition than  the  one  he  put  up  to  me.  .  .  .  The  job  itself 
will  let  me  teach  what  I  wish  and  in  my  own  way. 
I  can  give  Introductory  Economics,  and  Labor,  and 
Industrial  Organization,  etc."  Later,  he  telegraphed 
from  New  York,  where  he  had  again  seen  Suzzallo: 
"Have  accepted  Washington's  offer.  .  .  .  Details  of 
job  even  more  satisfactory  than  before." 

So,  sandwiched  in  between  all  the  visits  and  inter- 
views over  the  Book,  were  many  excursions  about 
locating  new  men  for  the  University  of  Washington. 
I  like  to  think  of  what  the  three  Pennsylvania  men 
he  wanted  had  to  say  about  him.  Seattle  seemed  very 
far  away  to  them  —  they  were  doubtful,  very.  Then 
they  heard  the  talk  before  the  Conference  referred  to 
above,  and  every  one  of  the  three  accepted  his  call. 
As  one  of  them  expressed  it  to  his  wife  later:  "  I  'd  go 
anywhere  for  that  man."  Between  that  Seattle  call 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  121 

and  his  death  there  were  eight  universities,  some  of 
them  the  biggest  in  the  country,  which  wished  Carl 
Parker  to  be  on  their  faculties.  One  smaller  university- 
held  out  the  presidency  to  him.  Besides  this,  there 
were  nine  jobs  outside  of  University  work  that  were 
offered  him,  from  managing  a  large  mine  to  doing 
research  work  in  Europe.  He  had  come  into  his  own. 

It  was  just  before  we  left  Berkeley  that  the  Univer- 
sity of  California  asked  Carl  to  deliver  an  address, 
explaining  his  approach  to  economics.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  the  most  difficult  talk  he  ever  gave.  There 
under  his  very  nose  sat  his  former  colleagues,  his  fel- 
low members  in  the  Economics  Department,  and  he 
had  to  stand  up  in  public  and  tell  them  just  how  in- 
adequate he  felt  most  of  their  teaching  to  be.  The 
head  of  the  Department  came  in  a  trifle  late  and  left 
immediately  after  the  lecture.  He  could  hardly  have 
been  expected  to  include  himself  in  the  group  who 
gathered  later  around  Carl  to  express  their  interest 
in  his  stand.  I  shall  quote  a  bit  from  this  paper  to 
show  Carl's  ideas  on  orthodox  economics. 

"This  brings  one  to  perhaps  the  most  costly  delin- 
quency of  modern  Economics,  and  that  is  its  refusal 
to  incorporate  into  its  weighings  and  appraisals  the 
facts  and  hypotheses  of  modern  psychology.  Nothing 
in  the  postulates  of  the  science  of  Economics  is  as 
ludicrous  as  its  catalogue  of  human  wants.  Though 
the  practice  of  ascribing  'faculties'  to  man  has  been 
passed  by  psychology  into  deserved  discard,  Econom- 
ics still  maintains,  as  basic  human  qualities,  a  galaxy 
of  vague  and  rather  spiritual  faculties.  It  matters  not 


122  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

that,  in  the  place  of  the  primitive  concepts  of  man 
stimulated  to  activity  by  a  single  trucking  sense,  or  a 
free  and  uninfluenced  force  called  a  soul,  or  a  'desire 
for  financial  independence,'  psychology  has  estab- 
lished a  human  being  possessed  of  more  instincts  than 
any  animal,  and  with  a  psychical  nature  whose  activi- 
ties fall  completely  within  the  causal  law. 

"It  would  be  a  great  task  and  a  useless  one  to  work 
through  current  economic  literature  and  gather  the 
strange  and  mystical  collection  of  human  dispositions 
which  economists  have  named  the  springs  of  human 
activity.  They  have  no  relation  to  the  modem  re- 
searches into  human  behavior  of  psychology  or  physi- 
ology. They  have  an  interesting  relation  only  to  the 
moral  attributes  postulated  in  current  religion. 

"But  more  important  and  injurious  than  the  cari- 
caturing of  wants  has  been  the  disappearance  from 
Economics  of  any  treatment  or  interest  in  human 
behavior  and  the  evolution  of  human  character  in 
Economic  life.  This  is  explained  in  large  part  by  the 
self-divorce  of  Economics  from  the  biological  field; 
but  also  in  an  important  way  by  the  exclusion  from 
Economics  of  considerations  of  consumption. 

"Only  under  the  influence  of  the  social  and  edu- 
cational psychologists  and  behaviorists  could  child- 
labor,  the  hobo,  unemployment,  poverty,  and  crimi- 
nality be  given  their  just  emphasis;  and  it  seems 
accurate  to  ascribe  the  social  sterility  of  Economic 
theory  and  its  programme  to  its  ignorance  and  lack 
of  interest  in  modern  comparative  psychology. 

"A  deeper  knowledge  of  human  instincts  would 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  123 

never  have  allowed  American  economists  to  keep 
their  faith  in  a  simple  rise  of  wages  as  an  all-cure  for 
labor  unrest.  In  England,  with  a  homogeneous  labor 
class,  active  in  politics,  maintaining  university  exten- 
sion courses,  spending  their  union's  income  on  intri- 
cate betterment  schemes,  and  wealthy  in  tradition  — 
there  a  rise  in  wages  meant  an  increase  in  welfare. 
But  in  the  United  States,  with  a  heterogeneous  labor 
class,  bereft  of  their  social  norms  by  the  violence  of 
their  uprooting  from  the  old  world,  dropped  into  an 
unprepared  and  chaotic  American  life,  with  its  insidi- 
ous prestige  —  here  a  rise  in  wages  could  and  does 
often  mean  added  ostentation,  social  climbing,  su- 
perficial polishing,  new  vice.  This  social  perversion 
in  the  consuming  of  the  wage-increase  is  without  the 
ken  of  the  economist.  He  cannot,  if  he  would,  think 
of  it,  for  he  has  no  mental  tools,  no  norms  applicable 
for  entrance  into  the  medley  of  human  motives  called 
consumption. 

"For  these  many  reasons  economic  thinking  has 
been  weak  and  futile  in  the  problems  of  conservation, 
of  haphazard  invention,  of  unrestricted  advertising, 
of  anti-social  production,  of  the  inadequacy  of  income, 
of  criminality.  These  are  problems  within  the  zone  of 
the  intimate  life  of  the  population.  They  are  economic 
problems,  and  determine  efficiencies  within  the  whole 
economic  life.  The  divorcing  for  inspection  of  the  field 
of  production  from  the  rest  of  the  machinery  of  civili- 
zation has  brought  into  practice  a  false  method,  and 
the  values  arrived  at  have  been  unhappily  half-truths. 
America  to-day  is  a  monument  to  the  truth  that 


124  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

growth  in  wealth  becomes  significant  for  national  wel- 
fare only  when  it  is  joined  with  an  efficient  and  social 
policy  in  its  consumption. 

"Economics  will  only  save  itself  through  an  alliance 
with  the  sciences  of  human  behavior,  psychology,  and 
biology,  and  through  a  complete  emancipation  from 
'  prosperity  mores. ' .  .  .  The  sin  of  Economics  has  been 
the  divorce  of  its  work  from  reality,  of  announcing  an 
analysis  of  human  activity  with  the  human  element 
left  out." 

One  other  point  remained  ever  a  sore  spot  with 
Carl,  and  that  was  the  American  university  and  its 
accomplishments.  In  going  over  his  writings,  I  find 
scattered  through  the  manuscripts  explosions  on  the 
ways,  means,  and  ends,  of  academic  education  in  our 
United  States.  For  instance,  — 

"Consider  the  paradox  of  the  rigidity  of  the  uni- 
versity student's  scheme  of  study,  and  the  vagaries 
and  whims  of  the  scholarly  emotion.  Contemplate 
the  forcing  of  that  most  delicate  of  human  attributes, 
i.e.,  interest,  to  bounce  forth  at  the  clang  of  a  gong. 
To  illustrate:  the  student  is  confidently  expected  to 
lose  himself  in  fine  contemplation  of  Plato's  philoso- 
phy up  to  eleven  o'clock,  and  then  at  11.07,  with 
no  important  mental  cost,  to  take  up  a  profitable  and 
scholarly  investigation  into  the  banking  problems  of 
the  United  States.  He  will  be  allowed  by  the  proper 
academic  committee  German  Composition  at  one 
o'clock,  diseases  of  citrus  fruit  trees  at  two,  and  at 
three  he  is  asked  to  exhibit  a  fine  sympathy  in  the 
Religions  and  Customs  of  the  Orient.  Between  4.07 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  125 

and  five  it  is  calculated  that  he  can  with  profit  indulge 
in  gymnasium  recreation,  led  by  an  instructor  who 
counts  out  loud  and  waves  his  arms  in  time  to  a 
mechanical  piano.  Between  five  and  six,  this  student, 
led  by  a  yell-leader,  applauds  football  practice.  The 
growing  tendency  of  American  university  students  to 
spend  their  evenings  in  extravagant  relaxation,  at  the 
moving  pictures,  or  in  unconventional  dancing,  is 
said  to  be  willful  and  an  indication  of  an  important 
moral  sag  of  recent  years.  It  would  be  interesting  also 
to  know  if  Arkwright,  Hargreaves,  Watt,  or  Darwin, 
Edison,  Henry  Ford,  or  the  Wrights,  or  other  persons 
of  desirable  if  unconventional  mechanical  imagina- 
tion, were  encouraged  in  their  scientific  meditation  by 
scholastic  experiences  of  this  kind.  Every  American 
university  has  a  department  of  education  devoted  to 
establishing  the  most  effective  methods  of  imparting 
knowledge  to  human  beings." 

From  the  same  article:  — 

"The  break  in  the  systematizatlon  which  an  irregu- 
lar and  unpredictable  thinker  brings  arouses  a  per- 
sistent if  unfocused  displeasure.  Hence  we  have  the 
accepted  and  cultivated  institutions,  such  as  our 
universities,  our  churches,  our  clubs,  sustaining  with 
care  mediocre  standards  of  experimental  thought. 
European  critics  have  long  compared  the  repressed 
and  uninspiring  intellect  of  the  American  undergrad- 
uate with  the  mobile  state  of  mind  of  the  Russian  and 
German  undergraduates  which  has  made  their  insti- 
tutions the  centre  of  revolutionary  change  propa- 
ganda. To  one  who  knows  in  any  intimate  way  the 


126  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

life  of  the  American  student,  it  becomes  only  an  un- 
comfortable humor  to  visualize  any  of  his  campuses 
as  the  origins  of  social  protests.  The  large  industry 
of  American  college  athletics  and  Its  organization-for- 
victory  concept,  the  tendency  to  set  up  an  efficient 
corporation  as  the  proper  university  model,  the  exten- 
sive and  unashamed  university  advertising,  and  con- 
sequent apprehension  of  public  opinion,  the  love  of 
size  and  large  registration,  that  strange  psychological 
abnormality,  organized  cheering,  the  curious  compan- 
ionship of  state  universities  and  military  drill,  regular 
examinations  and  rigidly  prescribed  work  —  all  these 
interesting  characteristics  are,  as  is  natural  in  char- 
acter-formation, both  cause  and  effect.  It  becomes  an 
easy  prophecy  within  behaviorism  to  forecast  that 
American  universities  will  continue  regular  and  medi- 
ocre in  mental  activity  and  reasonably  devoid  of 
intellectual  bent  toward  experimental  thinking." 

Perhaps  here  is  where  I  may  quote  a  letter  Carl 
received  just  before  leaving  Berkeley,  and  his  answer 
to  it.  This  correspondence  brings  up  several  points 
on  which  Carl  at  times  received  criticism,  and  I 
should  like  to  give  the  two  sides,  each  so  typical  of 
the  point  of  view  it  represents. 

Fehrimry  28,  1917 

My  dear  Carleton  Parker,  — 

When  we  so  casually  meet  it  is  as  distressing  as  it 
is  amusing  to  me,  to  know  that  the  God  I  intuitively 
defend  presents  to  you  the  image  of  the  curled  and 
scented  monster  of  the  Assyrian  sculpture. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  127 

He  was  never  that  to  me,  and  the  visualization  of 
an  imaginative  child  is  a  remarkable  thing.  From  the 
first,  the  word  "God,"  spoken  in  the  comfortable  (al- 
most smug)  atmosphere  of  the  old  Unitarian  congre- 
gation, took  my  breath  and  tranced  me  into  a  vision 
of  a  great  flood  of  vibrating  light,  and  only  light. 

I  wonder  if,  in  your  childhood,  some  frightening 
picture  in  some  old  book  was  not  the  thing  that  you 
are  still  fighting  against?  So  that,  emancipated  as  you 
are,  you  are  still  a  little  afraid,  and  must  perforce 
—  with  a  remainder  of  the  brave  swagger  of  youth  — 
set  up  a  barrier  of  authorities  to  fight  behind,  and, 
quite  unconsciously,  you  are  thus  building  yourself 
into  a  vault  in  which  no  flowers  can  bloom  —  because 
you  have  sealed  the  high  window  of  the  imagination 
so  that  the  frightening  God  may  not  look  in  upon 
you  —  this  same  window  through  which  simple  men 
get  an  illumination  that  saves  their  lives,  and  in  the 
light  of  which  they  communicate  kindly,  one  with 
the  other,  their  faith  and  hopes? 

I  am  impelled  to  say  this  to  you,  first,  because  of 
the  responsibility  which  rests  upon  you  in  your  rela- 
tion to  young  minds;  and,  second,  I  like  you  and  your 
eagerness  and  the  zest  for  Truth  that  you  transmit. 

You  are  dedicated  to  the  pursuit  of  Truth,  and 
you  afford  us  the  dramatic  incidents  of  your  pursuit. 

Yet  up  to  this  moment  it  seems  to  me  you  are 
accepting  Truth  at  second-hand. 

I  counted  seventeen  "authorities"  quoted,  chapter 
and  verse  (and  then  abandoned  the  enumeration),  in 
the  free  talk  of  the  other  evening;  and  asked  myself 


128  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

if  this  reverence  of  the  student  for  the  master,  was  all 
that  we  were  ultimately  to  have  of  that  vivid  indi- 
vidual whom  we  had  so  counted  upon  as  Carl  Parker? 

I  wondered,  too,  if,  in  the  great  opportunity  that 
has  come  to  you,  those  simple  country  boys  and  girls 
of  Washington  were  to  be  thus  deprived,  —  were  to 
find  not  you  but  your  "authorities,"  —  because  Carl 
Parker  refused  (even  ever  so  modestly)  to  learn  that 
Truth,  denied  the  aid  of  the  free  imagination,  takes 
revenge  upon  her  disciple,  by  shutting  off  from  him 
the  sources  of  life  by  which  a  man  is  made  free, 
and  reducing  his  mind  —  his  rich,  variable,  potential 
mind  —  to  the  mechanical  operation  of  a  repetitious 
machine. 

I  feel  this  danger  for  you,  and  for  the  youths  you 
are  to  educate,  so  poignantly  that  I  venture  to  write 
with  this  frankness. 

Your  present  imprisonment  is  not  necessarily  a  life 
sentence;  but  your  satisfaction  in  it  —  your  accept- 
ance of  the  routine  of  your  treadmill  —  is  chilling  to 
the  hopes  of  those  who  have  waited  upon  your  prog- 
ress; and  it  imperils  your  future  —  as  well  as  that 
hope  we  have  in  the  humanities  that  are  to  be  im- 
planted in  the  minds  of  the  young  people  you  are  to 
instruct.  We  would  not  have  you  remain  under  the 
misapprehension  that  Truth  alone  can  ever  serve 
humanity  —  Truth  remains  sterile  until  it  is  married 
to  Goodness.  That  marriage  is  consummated  in  the 
high  flight  of  the  imagination,  and  its  progeny  is  of 
beauty. 

You  need  beauty  —  you  need  verse  and  color  and 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  12Q 

music  —  you  need  all  the  escapes  —  all  the  doors 
wide  open  —  and  this  seemingly  impertinent  letter 
is  merely  the  appeal  of  one  human  creature  to  an- 
other, for  the  sake  of  all  the  human  creatures  whom 
you  have  it  in  your  power  to  endow  with  chains  or 
with  wings. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Bruce  Porter. 

My  dear  Bruce  Porter,  — 

My  present  impatient  attitude  towards  a  mystic 
being  without  doubt  has  been  influenced  by  some 
impression  of  my  childhood,  but  not  the  terror- 
bringing  creatures  you  suggest.  My  family  was  one 
of  the  last  three  which  clung  to  a  dying  church  in  my 
country  town.  I,  though  a  boy  of  twelve,  passed  the 
plate  for  two  years  while  the  minister's  daughter  sang 
a  solo.  Our  village  was  not  a  happy  one,  and  the  in- 
congruity of  our  emotional  prayers  and  ecstasies  of 
imagery,  and  the  drifting  dullness  and  meanness  of 
the  life  outside,  filtered  in  some  way  into  my  boy 
mind.  I  saw  that  suffering  was  real  and  pressing,  and 
so  many  suffered  resignedly ;  and  that  imagery  and  my 
companionship  with  a  God  (I  was  highly  "religious" 
then)  worked  in  a  self-centred  circle.  I  never  strayed 
from  the  deadly  taint  of  some  gentle  form  of  egotism. 
I  was  then  truly  in  a  "vault."  I  did  things  for  a  system 
of  ethics,  not  because  of  a  fine  rush  of  social  brotherly 
intuition.  My  imagination  was  ever  concerned  with 
me  and  my  prospects,  my  salvation.  I  honestly  and 
soberly  believe  that  your  "high  window  of  the  imag- 


130  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

ination"  works  out  in  our  world  as  such  a  force  for 
egotism ;  it  is  a  self-captivating  thing,  it  divorces  man 
from  the  plain  and  bitter  realities  of  life,  it  brings  an 
anti-social  emancipation  to  him.  I  can  sincerely  make 
this  terrible  charge  against  the  modern  world,  and 
that  is,  that  it  is  its  bent  towards  mysticism,  its 
blinding  itself  through  hysteria,  which  makes  possible 
in  its  civilization  its  desperate  inequalities  of  life- 
expression,  its  tortured  children,  its  unhappy  men 
and  women,  its  wasted  potentiality.  We  have  not 
been  humble  and  asked  what  is  man;  we  have  not 
allowed  ourselves  to  weigh  sorrow.  It  is  in  such  a  use 
that  our  powers  of  imagination  could  be  brotherly. 
We  look  on  high  in  ecstasy,  and  fail  to  be  on  flame 
because  of  the  suffering  of  those  whose  wounds  are 
bare  to  our  eyes  on  the  street. 

And  that  brings  me  to  my  concept  of  a  God.  God 
exists  in  us  because  of  our  bundle  of  social  brother- 
acts.  Contemplation  and  crying  out  and  assertions  of 
belief  are  in  the  main  notices  that  we  are  substituting 
something  for  acts.  Our  God  should  be  a  thing  dis- 
covered only  in  retrospect.  We  live,  we  fight,  we  know 
others,  and,  as  Overstreet  says,  our  God  sins  and 
fights  at  our  shoulder.  He  may  be  a  mean  God  or  a 
fine  one.  He  is  limited  in  his  stature  by  our  service. 

I  fear  your  God,  because  I  think  he  is  a  product  of 
the  unreal  and  unhelpful,  that  he  has  a  "  bad  psycho- 
logical past,"  that  he  is  subtly  egotistical,  that  he  fills 
the  vision  and  leaves  no  room  for  the  simple  and 
patient  deeds  of  brotherhood,  a  heavenly  contempla- 
tion taking  the  place  of  earthly  deeds. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  131 

You  feel  that  I  quote  too  many  minds  and  am 
hobbled  by  it.  I  delight  just  now  in  the  companion- 
ship of  men  through  their  books.  I  am  devoted  to 
knowing  the  facts  of  the  lives  of  other  humans  and 
the  train  of  thought  which  their  experiences  have 
started.  To  lead  them  is  like  talking  to  them.  I  sus- 
pect, even  dread,  the  "original  thinker"  who  knows 
li,ttle  of  the  experiments  and  failures  of  the  thinkers 
of  other  places  and  times.  To  me  such  a  stand  denies 
that  promising  thing,  the  evolution  of  human  thought. 
I  also  turn  from  those  who  borrow,  but  neglect  to  tell 
their  sources.  I  want  my  "simple  boys  and  girls  of 
Washington"  to  know  that  to-day  is  a  day  of  honest 
science;  that  events  have  antecedents;  that  "luck" 
does  not  exist;  that  the  world  will  improve  only 
through  thoughtful  social  effort,  and  that  lives  are 
happy  only  in  that  effort.  And  with  it  all  there  will  be 
time  for  beauty  and  verse  and  color  and  music  —  far 
be  it  from  me  to  shut  these  out  of  my  own  life  or  the 
lives  of  others.  But  they  are  instruments,  not  attri- 
butes. I  am  very  glad  you  wrote. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Carleton  H.  Parker. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

In  May  we  sold  our  loved  hill  nest  in  Berkeley  and 
started  north,  stopping  for  a  three  months'  vacation 

—  our  first  real  vacation  since  we  had  been  married 

—  at  Castle  Crags,  where,  almost  ten  years  before,  we 
had  spent  the  first  five  days  of  our  honeymoon,  before 
going  into  Southern  Oregon.  There,  in  a  log-cabin 
among  the  pines,  we  passed  unbelievably  cherished 
days  —  work  a-plenty,  play  a-plenty,  and  the  family 
together  day  in,  day  out.  There  was  one  little  extra 
trip  he  got  in  with  the  two  sons,  for  which  I  am  so 
thankful.  The  three  of  them  went  off  with  their  sleep- 
ing-bags and  rods  for  two  days,  leaving  "the  girls" 
behind.  Each  son  caught  his  first  trout  with  a  fly. 
They  put  the  fish,  cleaned,  in  a  cool  sheltered  spot, 
because  they  had  to  be  carried  home  for  me  to  see; 
and  lo!  a  little  bear  came  down  in  the  night  and  ate 
the  fish,  in  addition  to  licking  the  fat  all  off  the 
frying-pan. 

Then,  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue,  came  the  fateful 
telegram  from  Washington,  D.C.  —  labor  difficulties 
in  construction-work  at  Camp  Lewis  —  would  he 
report  there  at  once  as  Government  Mediator.  Oh! 
the  Book,  the  Book  —  the  Book  that  was  to  be  fin- 
ished without  fail  before  the  new  work  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Washington  began!  Perhaps  he  would  be  back 
in  a  week!  Surely  he  would  be  back  in  a  week!  So 
he  packed  just  enough  for  a  week,  and  off  he  went 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  133 

One  week!  When,  after  four  weeks,  there  was  still 
no  let  up  in  his  mediation  duties,  —  in  fact  they  in- 
creased, —  I  packed  up  the  family  and  we  left  for 
Seattle.  I  had  rewound  his  fishing-rod  with  orange  silk, 
and  had  revamished  it,  as  a  surprise  for  his  home- 
coming to  Castle  Crags.  He  never  fished  with  it  again. 
How  that  man  loved  fishing!  How  he  loved  every 
sport,  for  that  matter.  And  he  loved  them  with  the 
same  thoroughness  and  allegiance  that  he  gave  to 
any  cause  near  his  heart.  Baseball  —  he  played  on  his 
high-school  team  (also  he  could  recite  "Casey  at  the 
Bat"  with  a  gusto  that  many  a  friend  of  the  earlier 
days  will  remember.  And  here  I  am  reminded  of  his 
"Christopher  Columnibus."  I  recently  ran  across  a 
postcard  a  college  mate  sent  Carl  from  Italy  years 
ago,  with  a  picture  of  a  statue  of  Columbus  on  it.  On 
the  reverse  side  the  friend  had  written,  quoting  from 
Carl's  monologue:  " ' Boom  Joe! '  says  the  king;  which 
is  being  interpreted,  *I  see  you  first.'  'Wheat  cakes,' 
says  Chris,  which  is  the  Egyptian  for  'Boom  Joe*"). 
He  loved  football,  track,  —  he  won  three  gold  medals 
broad- jumping,  —  canoeing,  swimming,  billiards,  — 
he  won  a  loving  cup  at  that,  —  tennis,  ice-skating, 
hand-ball;  and  yes,  ye  of  finer  calibre,  quiver  if  you 
will  —  he  loved  a  prize-fight  and  played  a  mighty 
good  game  of  poker,  as  well  as  bridge  —  though  in 
the  ten  and  a  half  years  that  we  were  married  I  can- 
not remember  that  he  played  poker  once  or  bridge 
more  than  five  times.  He  did,  however,  enjoy  his 
bridge  with  Simon  Patton  in  Philadelphia;  and  when 
he  played,  he  played  well. 


134  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

I  tell  you  there  was  hardly  anything  the  man  could 
not  do.  He  could  draw  the  funniest  pictures  you  ever 
saw  —  I  wish  I  could  reproduce  the  letters  he  sent  his 
sons  from  the  East.  He  was  a  good  carpenter  —  the 
joy  it  meant  to  his  soul  to  add  a  second-hand  tool  ever 
so  often  to  his  collection !  Sunday  morning  was  special 
carpenter-time  —  new  shelves  here,  a  bookcase  there, 
new  steps  up  to  the  swimming-tank,  etc.  I  have  heard 
many  a  man  say  that  he  told  a  story  better  than  any 
one  they  ever  heard.  He  was  an  expert  woodsman. 
And,  my  gracious!  how  he  did  love  babies!  That 
hardly  fits  in  just  here,  but  I  think  of  it  now.  His  love 
for  children  colored  his  whole  economic  viewpoint. 

"There  is  the  thing  that  possessed  Parker  —  the 
perception  of  the  destructive  significance  of  the  re- 
pressed and  balked  instincts  of  the  migratory  worker, 
the  unskilled,  the  casuals,  the  hoboes,  the  womanless, 
jobless,  voteless  men.  To  him  their  tragedy  was  akin 
to  the  tragedy  of  child-life  in  our  commercialized 
cities.  More  often  than  of  anything  else,  he  used  to 
talk  to  me  of  the  fatuous  blindness  of  a  civilization 
that  centred  its  economic  activities  in  places  where 
child-life  was  perpetually  repressed  and  imperiled. 
The  last  time  I  saw  him  he  was  flaming  indignation 
at  the  ghastly  record  of  children  killed  and  maimed 
by  trucks  and  automobiles.  What  business  had  auto- 
mobiles where  children  should  be  free  to  play?  What 
could  be  said  for  the  human  wisdom  of  a  civilization 
that  placed  traffic  above  child-life?  In  our  denial  to 
children,  to  millions  of  men  and  women,  of  the  means 
for  satisfying  their  instinctive  desires  and  innate  dis- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  135 

positions,  he  saw  the  principal  explanation  of  crime, 
labor-unrest,  the  violence  of  strikes,  the  ghastly  vio- 
lence of  war."^ 

He  could  never  pass  any  youngster  anywhere  with- 
out a  word  of  greeting  as  from  friend  to  friend.  I  re- 
member being  in  a  crowded  car  with  him  in  our  en- 
gaged days.  He  was  sitting  next  to  a  woman  with  a 
baby  who  was  most  unhappy  over  the  ways  of  the 
world.  Carl  asked  if  he  could  not  hold  the  squaller. 
The  mother  looked  a  bit  doubtful,  but  relinquished 
her  child.  Within  two  minutes  the  babe  was  content 
on  Carl's  knees,  clutching  one  of  his  fingers  in  a  fat 
fist  and  sucking  his  watch.  The  woman  leaned  over 
to  me  later,  as  she  was  about  to  depart  with  a  very 
sound  asleep  offspring.  "  Is  he  as  lovely  as  that  to  his 
own?" 

The  tenderness  of  him  over  his  own!  Any  hour  of 
the  day  or  night  he  was  alert  to  be  of  any  service  in 
any  trouble,  big  or  little.  He  had  a  collection  of  tricks 
and  stories  on  hand  for  any  youngster  who  happened 
along.  The  special  pet  of  our  own  boys  was  "The 
Submarine  Obo  Bird"  —  a  large  flapper  (Dad's  arms 
fairly  rent  the  air),  which  was  especially  active  early 
in  the  morning,  when  small  boys  appeared  to  prefer 
staying  in  bed  to  getting  up.  The  Obo  Bird  went 
"Pak!  Pak!"  and  lit  on  numerous  objects  about  the 
sleeping  porch.  Carl's  two  hands  would  plump  stiff, 
fingers  down,  on  the  railing,  or  on  a  small  screw  stick- 
ing out  somewhere.  Scratches.  Then  "Pak!"  and 
more  flaps.  This  time  the  Obo  Bird  would  light  a  trifle 
^  Robert  Bru^re,  in  the  New  Republic,  May  18,  1918. 


136  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

nearer  the  small  boy  whose  "turn"  it  was  —  round 
eyes,  and  an  agitated  grin  from  ear  to  ear,  plus  explo- 
sive giggles  and  gurglings  emerging  from  the  covers. 
Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  Obo  Bird.  Gigglier  and 
gigglier  got  the  small  boy.  Finally,  with  a  spring  and 
a  last  "  Pak !  Pak !  Pak ! "  the  Obo  Bird  dove  under  the 
covers  at  the  side  of  the  bed  and  pinched  the  small 
boy  who  would  not  get  up.  (Rather  a  premium  on  not 
rising  promptly  was  the  Obo  Bird.)  Final  ecstatic 
squeals  from  the  pinched.  Then,  "Now  it's  my  turn, 
daddo!"  from  the  other  son.  — The  Submarine  Obo 
Bird  lived  in  Alaska  and  ate  Spooka  biscuits.  There 
was  just  developing  a  wee  Obo  Bird,  that  made  less 
vehement  "paks!"  and  pinched  less  agitatedly  —  a 
special  June-Bug  Obo  Bird.  In  fact,  the  baby  was  not 
more  than  three  months  old  when  the  boys  demanded 
a  Submarine  Obo  Bird  that  ate  little  Spooka  biscuits 
for  sister. 

His  trip  to  Camp  Lewis  threw  him  at  once  into  the 
midst  of  the  lumber  difficulties  of  the  Northwest, 
which  lasted  for  months.  The  big  strike  in  the  lumber 
industry  was  on  when  he  arrived.  He  wrote:  "  It  is  a 
strike  to  better  conditions.  The  I.W.W.  are  only  the 
display  feature.  The  main  body  of  opinion  is  from 
a  lot  of  unskilled  workers  who  are  sick  of  the  filthy 
bunk- houses  and  rotten  grub."  He  wrote  later  of  a 
conference  with  the  big  lumbermen,  and  of  how  they 
would  not  stay  on  the  point  but  "roared  over  the 
I.W.W.  I  told  them  that  condemnation  was  not  a 
solution,  or  businesslike,  but  what  we  wanted  was  a 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  137 

statement  of  how  they  were  to  open  their  plants.  More 
roars.  More  demands  for  troops,  etc.  I  said  I  was  a 
college  man,  not  used  to  business;  but  if  business  men 
had  as  much  trouble  as  this  keeping  to  the  real  points 
involved,  give  me  a  faculty  analysis.  They  laughed 
over  this  and  got  down  to  business,  and  in  an  hour 
lined  up  the  affair  in  mighty  good  shape." 

I  wish  it  were  proper  to  go  into  the  details  here  of 
the  various  conferences,  the  telegrams  sent  to  Wash- 
ington, the  replies.  Carl  wrote:  "I  am  saving  all  the 
copies  for  you,  as  it  is  most  interesting  history."  Each 
letter  would  end:  "By  three  days  at  least  I  should 
start  back.  I  am  getting  frantic  to  be  home."  Home, 
for  the  Parkers,  was  always  where  we  happened  to  be 
then.  Castle  Crags  was  as  much  "home"  as  any  place 
had  ever  been.  We  had  moved  fourteen  times  in  ten 
years:  of  the  eleven  Christmases  we  had  had  together, 
only  two  had  been  in  the  same  place.  There  were 
times  when  "home"  was  a  Pullman  car.  It  made  no 
difference.  One  of  the  strange  new  feelings  I  have  to 
get  used  to  is  the  way  I  now  look  at  places  to  live  in. 
It  used  to  be  that  Carl  and  I,  in  passing  the  littlest 
bit  of  a  hovel,  would  say,  "We  could  be  perfectly 
happy  in  a  place  like  that,  could  n't  we?  Nothing 
makes  any  difference  if  we  are  together."  But  certain 
kinds  of  what  we  called  "cuddly"  houses  used  to 
make  us  catch  our  breaths,  to  think  of  the  extra  joy 
it  would  be  living  together  tucked  away  in  there. 
Now,  when  I  pass  a  place  that  looks  like  that,  I  have 
to  drop  down  some  kind  of  a  trap-door  in  my  brain, 
and  not  think  at  all  until  I  get  well  by  it. 


138  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Labor  conditions  in  the  Northwest  grew  worse, 
strikes  more  general,  and  finally  Carl  wrote  that  he 
just  must  be  indefinitely  on  the  job.  "  I  am  so  home- 
sick for  you  that  I  feel  like  packing  up  and  coming. 
I  literally  feel  terribly.  But  with  all  this  feeling  I  don't 
see  how  I  can.  Not  only  have  I  been  telegraphed  to 
stay  on  the  job,  but  the  situation  is  growing  steadily 
worse.  Last  night  my  proposal  (eight-hour  day,  non- 
partisan complaint  and  adjustment  board,  suppres- 
sion of  violence  by  the  state)  was  turned  down  by  the 
operators  in  Tacoma.  President  Suzzallo  and  I  fought 
for  six  hours  but  it  went  down.  The  whole  situation  is 
drifting  into  a  state  of  incipient  sympathetic  strikes." 
Later:  "This  is  the  most  bull-headed  affair  and  I 
don't  think  it  is  going  to  get  anywhere."  Still  later: 
"Things  are  not  going  wonderfully  in  our  mediation. 
Employers  demanding  everything  and  men  granting 
much  but  not  that."  Again:  "Each  day  brings  a  new 
crisis.  Gee,  labor  is  unrestful  .  .  .  and  gee,  the  pig- 
headedness  of  bosses !  Human  nature  is  sure  one  hun- 
dred per  cent  psychology."  Also  he  wrote,  referring 
to  the  general  situation  at  the  University  and  in  the 
community:  "Am  getting  absolutely  crazy  with  en- 
thusiasm over  my  job  here.  ...  It  is  too  vigorous 
and  resultful  for  words."  And  again:  "The  mediation 
between  employers  and  men  blew  up  to-day  at  4  p.m. 
and  now  a  host  of  nice  new  strikes  show  on  the  hori- 
zon. .  .  .  There  are  a  lot  of  fine  operators  but  some 
hard  shells."  Again:  "Gee,  I'm  learning!  And  talk 
about  material  for  the  Book!" 

An  article  appeared  in  one  of  the  New  York  papers 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  139 

recently,  entitled  "  How  Carle  ton  H.  Parker  Settled 
Strikes":  — 

"It  was  under  his  leadership  that,  in  less  than  a 
year,  twenty-seven  disputes  which  concerned  Govern- 
ment work  in  the  Pacific  Northwest  were  settled,  and 
it  was  his  method  to  lay  the  basis  for  permanent  re- 
lief as  he  went  along.  .  .  . 

"Parker's  contribution  was  in  the  method  he  used. 
.  .  .  Labor  leaders  of  all  sorts  would  flock  to  him  in 
a  bitter,  weltering  mass,  mouthing  the  set  phrases 
of  class-hatred  they  use  so  effectually  in  stirring  up 
trouble.  They  would  state  their  case.  And  Parker 
would  quietly  deduce  the  irritation  points  that  seemed 
to  stand  out  in  the  jumbled  testimony. 

"Then  it  would  be  almost  laughable  to  the  observer 
to  hear  the  employer's  side  of  the  case.  Invariably  it 
was  just  as  bitter,  just  as  unreasoning,  and  just  as 
violent,  as  the  statement  of  their  case  by  the  workers. 
Parker  would  endeavor  to  find,  in  all  this  heap  of 
words,  the  irritation  points  of  the  other  side. 

"But  when  a  study  was  finished,  his  diagnosis 
made,  and  his  prescription  of  treatment  completed, 
Parker  always  insisted  in  carrying  it  straight  to  the 
workers.  And  he  did  not  just  tell  them  results.  He 
often  took  several  hours,  sometimes  several  meetings 
of  several  hours  each.  In  these  meetings  he  would  go 
over  every  detail  of  his  method,  from  start  to  finish, 
explaining,  answering  questions,  meeting  objections 
with  reason.  And  he  always  won  them  over.  But,  of 
course,  it  must  be  said  that  he  had  a  tremendously 
compelling  personality  that  carried  him  far." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

At  the  end  of  August  the  little  family  was  united 
again  in  Seattle.  Almost  the  clearest  picture  of  Carl 
I  have  is  the  eager  look  with  which  he  scanned  the 
people  stepping  out  of  our  car  at  the  station,  and  the 
beam  that  lit  up  his  face  as  he  spied  us.  There  is  a  line 
in  Dorothy  Canfield's  "Bent  Twig"  that  always  ap- 
pealed to  us.  The  mother  and  father  were  separated 
for  a  few  days,  to  the  utter  anguish  of  the  father 
especially,  and  he  remarked,  "It's  Hell  to  be  happily 
married!"  Every  time  we  were  ever  separated  we  felt 
just  that. 

In  one  of  Carl's  letters  from  Seattle  he  had  written: 
"The  'Atlantic  Monthly'  wants  me  to  write  an  article 
on  the  I.W.W.!!"  So  the  first  piece  of  work  he  had  to 
do  after  we  got  settled  was  that.  We  were  tremen- 
dously excited,  and  never  got  over  chuckling  at  some 
of  the  moss-grown  people  we  knew  about  the  country 
who  would  feel  outraged  at  the  "Atlantic  Monthly" 
stooping  to  print  stuff  by  that  young  radical.  And  on 
such  a  subject!  How  we  tore  at  the  end,  to  get  the 
article  off  on  time!  The  stenographer  from  the  Uni- 
versity came  about  two  one  Sunday  afternoon.  I  sat 
on  the  floor  up  in  the  guest-room  and  read  the  manu- 
script to  her  while  she  typed  it  off.  Carl  would  rush 
down  more  copy  from  his  study  on  the  third  floor. 
I  'd  go  over  it  while  Miss  Van  Doren  went  over  what 
she  had  typed.  Then  the  reading  would  begin  again. 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  141 

We  hated  to  stop  for  supper,  all  three  of  us  were  so 
excited  to  get  the  job  done.  It  had  to  be  at  the  main 
post-office  that  night  by  eleven,  to  arrive  in  Boston 
when  promised.  At  ten-thirty  it  was  in  the  envelope, 
three  limp  people  tore  for  the  car,  we  put  Miss  Van 
Doren  on,  —  she  was  to  mail  the  article  on  her  way 
home,  —  and  Carl  and  I,  knowing  this  was  an  occa- 
sion for  a  treat  if  ever  there  was  one,  routed  out  a 
sleepy  drug-store  clerk  and  ate  the  remains  of  his 
Sunday  ice-cream  supply. 

I  can  never  express  how  grateful  I  am  that  that 
article  was  written  and  published  before  Carl  died. 
The  influence  of  it  ramified  in  many  and  the  most 
unexpected  directions.  I  am  still  hearing  of  it.  We 
expected  condemnation  at  the  time.  There  probably 
was  plenty  of  it,  but  only  one  condemner  wrote.  On 
the  other  hand,  letters  streamed  in  by  the  score  from 
friends  and  strangers  bearing  the  general  message, 
"God  bless  you  for  it!" 

That  article  is  particularly  significant  as  showing 
his  method  of  approach  to  the  whole  problem  of 
the  I.W.W.,  after  some  two  years  of  psychological 
study. 

"  The  futility  of  much  conventional  American  social 
analysis  is  due  to  its  description  of  the  given  problem 
in  terms  of  its  relationship  to  some  relatively  unim- 
portant or  artificial  institution.  Few  of  the  current 
analyses  of  strikes  or  labor  violence  make  use  of  the 
basic  standards  of  human  desire  and  intention  which 
control  these  phenomena.  A  strike  and  its  demands 
are  usually  praised  as  being  law-abiding,  or  economi- 


142  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

cally  bearable,  or  are  condemned  as  being  unlawful, 
or  confiscatory.  These  four  attributes  of  a  strike  are 
important  only  as  incidental  consequences.  The  habit 
of  Americans  thus  to  measure  up  social  problems  to 
the  current,  temporary,  and  more  or  less  accidental 
scheme  of  traditions  and  legal  institutions,  long  ago 
gave  birth  to  our  national  belief  that  passing  a  new 
law  or  forcing  obedience  to  an  old  one  was  a  specific 
for  any  unrest.  The  current  analysis  of  the  I.W.W. 
and  its  activities  is  an  example  of  this  perverted  and 
unscientific  method.  The  I.W.W.  analysis,  which  has 
given  both  satisfaction  and  a  basis  for  treating  the 
organization,  runs  as  follows:  the  organization  is  un- 
lawful in  its  activity,  un-American  in  its  sabotage, 
unpatriotic  in  its  relation  to  the  flag,  the  government, 
and  the  war.  The  rest  of  the  condemnation  is  a  play 
upon  these  three  attributes.  So  proper  and  so  suffi- 
cient has  this  condemnatory  analysis  become,  that  it 
is  a  risky  matter  to  approach  the  problem  from  an- 
other angle.  But  it  is  now  so  obvious  that  our  internal 
affairs  are  out  of  gear,  that  any  comprehensive  scheme 
of  national  preparedness  would  demand  that  full  and 
honest  consideration  be  given  to  all  forces  determin- 
ing the  degree  of  American  unity,  one  force  being  this 
tabooed  organization. 

"  It  would  be  best  to  announce  here  a  more  or  less 
dogmatic  hypothesis  to  which  the  writer  will  stead- 
fastly adhere:  that  human  behavior  results  from  the 
rather  simple,  arithmetical  combination  of  the  in- 
herited nature  of  man  and  the  environment  in  which 
his  maturing  years  are  passed,   Man  will  behave 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  143 

according  to  the  hints  for  conduct  which  the  accidents 
of  his  life  have  stamped  into  his  memory  mechanism. 
A  slum  produces  a  mind  which  has  only  slum  incidents 
with  which  to  work,  and  a  spoiled  and  protected  child 
seldom  rises  to  aggressive  competitive  behavior, 
simply  because  its  past  life  has  stored  up  no  memory 
imprints  from  which  a  predisposition  to  vigorous  life 
can  be  built.  The  particular  things  called  the  moral 
attributes  of  man's  conduct  are  conventionally  found 
by  contrasting  this  educated  and  trained  way  of 
acting  with  the  exigencies  and  social  needs  or  dangers 
of  the  time.  Hence,  while  his  immoral  or  unpatriotic 
behavior  may  fully  justify  his  government  in  im- 
prisoning or  eliminating  him  when  it  stands  in  some 
particular  danger  which  his  conduct  intensifies,  this 
punishment  in  no  way  either  explains  his  character 
or  points  to  an  enduring  solution  of  his  problem. 
Suppression,  while  very  often  justified  and  necessary 
in  the  flux  of  human  relationship,  always  carries  a 
social  cost  which  must  be  liquidated,  and  also  a  back- 
fire danger  which  must  be  insured  against.  The  human 
being  is  born  with  no  innate  proclivity  to  crime  or 
special  kind  of  unpatriotism.  Crime  and  treason  are 
habit-activities,  educated  into  man  by  environ- 
mental influences  favorable  to  their  development.  .  .  . 
"The  I.W.W.  can  be  profitably  viewed  only  as  a 
psychological  by-product  of  the  neglected  childhood 
of  industrial  America.  It  is  discouraging  to  see  the 
problem  to-day  examined  almost  exclusively  from  the 
point  of  view  of  its  relation  to  patriotism  and  con- 
ventional commercial  morality.  .  .  . 


144  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

"  It  is  perhaps  of  value  to  quote  the  language  of  the 
most  influential  of  the  I.W.W.  leaders. 

"'You  ask  me  why  the  I.W.W.  is  not  patriotic  to 
the  United  States.  If  you  were  a  bum  without  a 
blanket;  if  you  left  your  wife  and  kids  when  you  went 
West  for  a  job,  and  had  never  located  them  since;  if 
your  job  never  kept  you  long  enough  in  a  place  to 
qualify  you  to  vote;  if  you  slept  in  a  lousy,  sour  bunk- 
house,  and  ate  food  just  as  rotten  as  they  could  give 
you  and  get  by  with  it;  if  deputy  sheriffs  shot  your 
cooking-cans  full  of  holes  and  spilled  your  grub  on 
the  ground ;  if  your  wages  were  lowered  on  you  when 
the  bosses  thought  they  had  you  down;  if  there  was 
one  law  for  Ford,  Suhr,  and  Mooney,  and  another  for 
Harry  Thaw;  if  every  person  who  represented  law  and 
order  and  the  nation  beat  you  up,  railroaded  you  to 
jail,  and  the  good  Christian  people  cheered  and  told 
them  to  go  to  it,  how  in  hell  do  you  expect  a  man 
to  be  patriotic?  This  war  is  a  business  man's  war  and 
we  don't  see  why  we  should  go  out  and  get  shot  in 
order  to  save  the  lovely  state  of  affairs  that  we  now 
enjoy.' 

"The  argument  was  rather  difficult  to  keep  pro- 
ductive, because  gratitude  —  that  material  prerequi- 
site to  patriotism  —  seemed  wanting  in  their  attitude 
toward  the  American  government.  Their  state  of 
mind  could  be  explained  only  by  referring  it,  as  was 
earlier  suggested,  to  its  major  relationships.  The  dom- 
inating concern  of  the  I.W.W.  is  what  Keller  calls 
the  maintenance  problem.  Their  philosophy  is,  in  its 
simple  reduction,   a  stomach-philosophy,  and  their 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  145 

politico-industrial  revolt  could  be  called  without  injus- 
tice a  hunger-riot.  But  there  is  an  important  correc- 
tion to  this  simple  statement.  While  their  way  of  living 
has  seriously  encroached  on  the  urgent  minima  of 
nutrition,  shelter,  clothing,  and  physical  health,  it  has 
also  long  outraged  the  American  laboring-class  tra- 
ditions touching  social  life,  sex-life,  self-dignity,  and 
ostentation.  Had  the  food  and  shelter  been  sufficient, 
the  revolt  tendencies  might  have  simmered  out,  were 
the  migratory  labor  population  not  keenly  sensitive 
to  traditions  of  a  richer  psychological  life  than  mere 
physical  maintenance." 

The  temper  of  the  country  on  this  subject,  the  gen- 
eral closed  attitude  of  mind  which  the  average  man 
holds  thereon,  prompt  me  to  add  here  a  few  more  of 
Carl's  generalizations  and  conclusions  in  this  article. 
If  only  he  were  here,  to  cry  aloud  again  and  yet  again 
on  this  point!  Yet  I  know  there  are  those  who  sense 
his  approach,  and  are  endeavoring  in  every  way  pos- 
sible to  make  wisdom  prevail  over  prejudice. 

"  Cynical  disloyalty  and  contempt  of  the  flag  must, 
in  the  light  of  modern  psychology,  come  from  a  mind 
which  is  devoid  of  national  gratitude,  and  in  which 
the  United  States  stirs  no  memory  of  satisfaction  or 
happiness.  To  those  of  us  who  normally  feel  loyal  to 
the  nation,  such  a  disloyal  sentiment  brings  sharp 
indignation.  As  an  index  of  our  own  sentiment  and 
our  own  happy  relations  to  the  nation,  this  indigna- 
tion has  value.  As  a  stimulus  to  a  programme  or  ethical 
generalization,  it  is  the  cause  of  vast  inaccuracy  and 
sad  injustice.  American  syndicalism  is  not  a  scheming 


146  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

group  dominated  by  an  unconventional  and  destruc- 
tive social  philosophy.  It  is  merely  a  commonplace 
attitude  —  not  such  a  state  of  mind  as  Machiavelli 
or  Robespierre  possessed,  but  one  stamped  by  the 
lowest,  most  miserable  labor-conditions  and  outlook 
which  American  industrialism  produces.  To  those 
who  have  seen  at  first-hand  the  life  of  the  western 
casual  laborer,  any  reflections  on  his  gratitude  or 
spiritual  buoyancy  seem  ironical  humor. 

"An  altogether  unwarranted  importance  has  been 
given  to  the  syndicalist  philosophy  of  the  I.W.W.  A 
few  leaders  use  its  phraseology.  Of  these  few,  not  half 
a  dozen  know  the  meaning  of  French  syndicalism  or 
English  guild  socialism.  To  the  great  wandering  rank 
and  file,  the  I.W.W.  is  simply  the  only  social  break  in 
the  harsh  search  for  work  that  they  have  ever  had; 
its  headquarters  the  only  competitor  of  the  saloon 
in  which  they  are  welcome.  .  .  . 

"It  is  a  conventional  economic  truism  that  Amer- 
ican industrialism  is  guaranteeing  to  some  half  of  the 
forty  millions  of  our  industrial  population  a  life  of 
such  limited  happiness,  of  such  restrictions  on  per- 
sonal development,  and  of  such  misery  and  desolation 
when  sickness  or  accident  comes,  that  we  should  be 
childish  political  scientists  not  to  see  that  from  such 
an  environment  little  self-sacrificing  love  of  country, 
little  of  ethics,  little  of  gratitude  could  come.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  the  scientific  findings  of  our  social 
condition  must  use  words  which  sound  strangely  like 
the  phraseology  of  the  Socialists.  This  similarity,  how- 
ever, should  logically  be  embarrassing  to  the  critics 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  147 

of  these  findings,  not  to  the  scientists.  Those  who 
have  investigated  and  studied  the  lower  strata  of 
American  labor  have  long  recognized  the  I.W.W.  as 
purely  a  symptom  of  a  certain  distressing  state  of 
affairs.  The  casual  migratory  laborers  are  the  finished 
product  of  an  economic  environment  which  seems  cru- 
elly efficient  in  turning  out  human  beings  modeled 
after  all  the  standards  which  society  abhors.  The  his- 
tory of  the  migratory  workers  shows  that,  starting 
with  the  long  hours  and  dreary  winters  on  the  farms 
they  ran  away  from,  or  the  sour-smelling  bunk-house 
in  a  coal  village,  through  their  character-debasing 
experience  with  the  drifting  'hire  and  fire'  life  in  the 
industries,  on  to  the  vicious  social  and  economic  life 
of  the  winter  unemployed,  their  training  predeter- 
mined but  one  outcome,  and  the  environment  pro- 
duced its  type. 

"The  I.W.W.  has  importance  only  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  a  stable  American  economic  process.  Its  pitiful 
syndicalism,  its  street-comer  opposition  to  the  war, 
are  the  inconsequential  trimmings.  Its  strike  alone, 
faithful  as  it  is  to  the  American  type,  is  an  illuminat- 
ing thing.  The  I.W.W.,  like  the  Grangers,  the  Knights 
of  Labor,  the  Farmers'  Alliance,  the  Progressive 
Party,  is  but  a  phenomenon  of  revolt.  The  cure  lies 
in  taking  care  of  its  psychic  antecedents;  the  sta- 
bility of  our  Republic  depends  on  the  degree  of  cour- 
age and  wisdom  with  which  we  move  to  the  task." 

In  this  same  connection  I  quote  from  another 
article :  — 

"No  one  doubts  the  full  propriety  of  the  govern- 


148  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

merit's  suppressing  ruthlessly  any  interference  of  the 
I.W.W.  with  war-preparation.  All  patriots  should 
just  as  vehemently  protest  against  all  suppression  of 
the  normal  protest  activities  of  the  I.W.W.  There 
will  be  neither  permanent  peace  nor  prosperity  in  our 
country  till  the  revolt  basis  of  the  I.W.W.  is  removed. 
And  until  that  is  done,  the  I.W.W.  remains  an  un- 
fortunate, valuable  symptom  of  a  diseased  indus- 
trialism." 

I  watch,  along  with  many  others,  the  growth  of 
bitterness  and  hysteria  in  the  treatment  of  labor 
spreading  throughout  our  country,  and  I  long,  with 
many  others,  for  Carl,  with  his  depth  and  sanity  of 
understanding,  coupled  with  his  passion  for  justice 
and  democracy,  to  be  somewhere  in  a  position  of 
guidance  for  these  troublous  times. 

I  am  reminded  here  of  a  little  incident  that  took 
place  just  at  this  time.  An  I.W.W.  was  to  come  out 
to  have  dinner  with  us  —  some  other  friends,  faculty 
people,  also  were  to  be  there.  About  noon  the  tele- 
phone rang.  Carl  went.  A  rich  Irish  brogue  announced: 

"  R can't  come  to  your  party  to-night."  "Why  is 

that?"  "He's  pinched.  An'  he  wants  t'  know  can  he 
have  your  Kant's  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason '  to  read 
while  he's  in  jail." 


CHAPTER  XV 

I  AM  forever  grateful  that  Carl  had  his  experience  at 
the  University  of  Washington  before  he  died.  He  left 
the  University  of  California  a  young  Assistant  Pro- 
fessor, just  one  rebellious  morsel  in  a  huge  machine. 
He  found  himself  in  Washington,  not  only  Head  of 
the  Department  of  Economics  and  Dean  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Commerce,  and  a  power  on  the  campus,  but  a 
power  in  the  community  as  well.  He  was  working 
under  a  President  who  backed  him  in  everything  to 
the  last  ditch,  who  was  keenly  interested  in  every 
ambition  he  had  for  making  a  big  thing  of  his  work. 
He  at  last  could  see  Introductory  Economics  given  as 
he  wanted  to  have  it  given  —  realizing  at  the  same 
time  that  his  plans  were  in  the  nature  of  an  experi- 
ment. The  two  textbooks  used  in  the  first  semester 
were  McDougall's  "Social  Psychology"  and  Wallas's 
"Great  Society."  During  part  of  the  time  he  pinned 
the  front  page  of  the  morning  paper  on  the  board, 
and  illustrated  his  subject-matter  by  an  item  of  news 
of  that  very  day. 

His  theory  of  education  was  that  the  first  step  in 
any  subject  was  to  awaken  a  keen  interest  and  curi- 
osity in  the  student;  for  that  reason  he  felt  that  pure 
theory  in  Economics  was  too  difficult  for  any  but 
seniors  or  graduates;  that,  given  too  soon,  it  tended 
only  to  discourage.  He  allowed  no  note-taking  in  any 
of  his  courses,  insisted  on  discussion  by  the  class,  no 


150  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

matter  how  large  it  was,  planned  to  do  away  with 
written  examinations  as  a  test  of  scholarship,  sub- 
stituting instead  a  short  oral  discussion  with  each 
student  individually,  grading  them  "passed"  and 
"not  passed."  As  it  was,  because  of  the  pressure  of 
Government  work,  he  had  to  resort  to  written  tests. 
The  proportion  of  first  sections  in  the  final  examina- 
tion, which  was  difficult,  was  so  large  that  Carl  was 
sure  the  reader  must  have  marked  too  leniently,  and 
looked  over  the  papers  himself.  His  results  were  the 
same  as  the  reader's,  and,  he  felt,  could  justifiably  be 
used  as  some  proof  of  his  theory  that,  if  a  student  is 
interested  in  the  subject,  you  cannot  keep  him  from 
doing  good  work. 

I  quote  here  from  two  letters  written  by  Washing- 
ton students  who  had  been  under  his  influence  but 
five  months. 

"May  I,  as  only  a  student,  add  my  inadequate 
sympathy  for  the  loss  of  Dr.  Parker  —  the  most  lib- 
eral man  I  have  known.  While  his  going  from  my  edu- 
cative life  can  be  nothing  as  compared  to  his  loss  from 
a  very  beautiful  family  group,  yet  the  enthusiasm, 
the  radiance  of  his  personality  —  freely  given  in  his 
classes  during  the  semester  I  was  privileged  to  know 
him  —  made  possible  to  me  a  greater  realization  of 
the  fascination  of  humanity  than  I  obtained  during 
my  previous  four  years  of  college  study.  I  still  look 
for  him  to  enter  the  classroom,  nor  shall  I  soon  forget 
his  ideals,  his  faith  in  humanity."  From  the  second 
letter:  "To  have  known  Mr.  Parker  as  well  as  I  did 
makes  me  feel  that  I  was  indeed  privileged,  and  I  shall 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  151 

always  carry  with  me  the  charm  and  inspiration  of 
his  glorious  personality.  The  campus  was  never  so 
sad  as  on  the  day  which  brought  the  news  of  his 
death  —  it  seemed  almost  incredible  that  one  man  in 
five  short  months  could  have  left  so  indelible  an 
impress  of  his  character  on  the  student  body." 

Besides  being  of  real  influence  on  the  campus,  he 
had  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  business  world, 
both  labor  and  capital;  and  in  addition,  he  stood  as 
the  representative  of  the  Government  in  labor-adjust- 
ments and  disputes.  And  —  it  was  of  lesser  conse- 
quence, but  oh  it  did  matter  —  we  had  money  enough 
to  live  on!!  We  had  made  ourselves  honestly  think 
that  we  had  just  about  everything  we  wanted  on 
what  we  got,  plus  outside  lectures,  in  California.  But 
once  we  had  tasted  of  the  new-found  freedom  of  truly 
enough;  once  there  was  gone  forever  the  stirring 
around  to  pick  up  a  few  extra  dollars  here  and  there 
to  make  both  ends  meet;  once  we  knew  for  the  first 
time  the  satisfaction  and  added  joy  that  come  from 
some  responsible  person  to  help  with  the  housework 
—  we  felt  that  we  were  soaring  through  life  with  our 
feet  hardly  touching  the  ground. 

Instead  of  my  spending  most  of  the  day  in  the 
kitchen  and  riding  herd  on  the  young,  we  had  our 
dropped-straight-from-heaven  Mrs.  Willard.  And  see 
what  that  meant.  Every  morning  at  nine  I  left  the 
house  with  Carl,  and  we  walked  together  to  the 
University.  As  I  think  of  those  daily  walks  now,  arm- 
in-arm,  rain  or  shine,  I  'd  not  give  up  the  memory  of 
them  for  all  creation,  Carl  would  go  over  what  he 


152  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

was  to  talk  about  that  morning  in  Introductory  Eco- 
nomics (how  it  would  have  raised  the  hair  of  the  or- 
thodox Econ.I  teacher!),  and  of  course  we  always 
talked  some  of  what  marvelous  children  we  possessed. 
Carl  would  begin:  "Tell  me  some  more  about  the 
June-Bug!" 

He  would  go  to  his  nine  o'clock,  I  to  mine.  After 
my  ten-o'clock  class,  and  on  the  way  to  my  eleven- 
o'clock  lecture,  I  always  ran  in  to  his  office  a  second, 
to  gossip  over  what  mail  he  had  got  that  morning 
and  how  things  were  going  generally.  Then,  at  twelve, 
in  his  office  again.  "Look  at  this  telegram  that  just 

came  in."  "How  shall  I  answer  Mr. 's  about  that 

job?"  And  then  home  together;  not  once  a  week,  but 
every  day. 

Afternoons,  except  the  three  afternoons  when  I 
played  hockey,  I  was  at  home;  but  always  there  was 
a  possibility  that  Carl  would  ring  up  about  five.  "I 
am  at  a  meeting  down- town.  Can't  get  things  settled, 
so  we  continue  this  evening.  Run  down  and  have  sup- 
per with  me,  and  perhaps,  who  knows,  a  Bill  Hart 
film  might  be  around  town!"  There  was  Mrs.  Willard 
who  knew  just  what  to  do,  and  off  I  could  fly  to  see 
my  husband.  You  can't,  on  ^1700  a  year. 

I  hear  people  nowadays  scold  and  roar  over  the 
pay  the  working  classes  are  getting,  and  how  they 
are  spending  it  all  on  nonsense  and  not  saving  a  cent. 
I  stand  it  as  long  as  I  can  and  then  I  burst  out.  For 
I,  too,  have  tasted  the  joy  of  at  last  being  able  to  get 
things  we  never  thought  we  would  own  and  of  feeling 
the  wings  of  financial  freedom  feather  out  where,  be- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  153 

fore,  all  had  been  cold  calculation:  Can  we  do  this? 
if  so,  what  must  we  give  up?  I  wish  every  one  on  earth 
could  feel  it.  I  do  not  care  if  they  do  not  save  a  cent. 

Only  I  do  wish  my  Carl  could  have  experienced 
those  joys  a  little  longer.  It  was  so  good  —  so  good, 
while  it  lasted!  And  it  was  only  just  starting.  Every 
new  call  he  got  to  another  university  was  at  a  salary 
from  one  to  two  thousand  dollars  more  than  what  we 
were  getting,  even  at  Seattle.  It  looked  as  if  our  days 
of  financial  scrimping  were  gone  forever.  We  even 
discussed  a  Ford !  nay  —  even  a  four-cylinder  Buick! 
And  every  other  Sunday  we  had  fricasseed  chicken, 
and  always,  always  a  frosting  on  the  cake.  For  the 
first  two  months  in  Seattle  we  felt  as  if  we  ought  to 
have  company  at  every  meal.  It  did  not  seem  right 
to  sit  down  to  food  as  good  as  that,  with  just  the 
family  present.  And  it  was  such  fun  to  bring  home 
unexpected  guests,  and  to  know  that  Mrs.  Willard 
could  concoct  a  dream  of  a  dish  while  the  guests  were 
removing  their  hats;  and  I  not  having  to  miss  any  of 
the  conversation  from  being  in  the  kitchen.  Every 
other  Sunday  night  we  had  the  whole  Department 
and  their  wives  to  Sunday  supper  —  sixteen  of  them. 
Oh  dear,  oh  dear,  money  does  make  a  difference.  We 
grew  more  determined  than  ever  to  see  that  more 
folk  in  the  world  got  more  of  it. 

And  yet,  in  a  sense,  Carl  was  a  typical  professor  in 
his  unconcern  over  matters  financial.  He  started  in 
the  first  month  we  were  married  by  turning  over 
every  cent  to  me  as  a  matter  of  course;  and  from  the 
beginning  of  each  month  to  the  end,  he  never  had  the 


154  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

remotest  idea  how  much  money  we  possessed  or  what 
it  was  spent  for.  So  far  as  his  peace  of  mind  went,  on 
the  whole,  he  was  a  capitalist.  He  knew  we  needed 
more  money  than  he  was  making  at  the  University  of 
California,  therefore  he  made  all  he  could  on  the  out- 
side, and  came  home  and  dumped  it  in  my  lap.  From 
one  year's  end  to  the  next,  he  spent  hardly  five  cents 
on  himself  —  a  new  suit  now  and  then,  a  new  hat, 
new  shirts  at  a  sale,  but  never  a  penny  that  was  not 
essential. 

On  the  rest  of  us  —  there  he  needed  a  curbing  hand ! 
I  discovered  him  negotiating  to  buy  me  a  set  of  jade 
when  he  was  getting  one  hundred  dollars  a  month. 
He  would  bring  home  a  box  of  peaches  or  a  tray  of 
berries,  when  they  were  first  in  the  market  and  eaten 
only  by  bank  presidents  and  railway  magnates,  and 
beam  and  say,  "Guess  what  surprise  I  have  for  you!" 
Nothing  hurt  his  feelings  more  than  to  have  him  sug- 
gest I  should  buy  something  for  myself,  and  have  me 
answer  that  we  could  not  afford  it.  "Then  I'll  dig 
sewers  on  the  side!"  he  would  exclaim.  "You  buy  it, 
and  I  '11  find  the  money  for  it  somewhere."  If  he  had 
turned  off  at  an  angle  of  fifty  degrees  when  he  first 
started  his  earthly  career,  he  would  have  been  a  star 
example  of  the  individual  who  presses  the  palms  of  his 
hands  together  and  murmurs,  "The  Lord  will  pro- 
vide!" 

I  never  knew  a  man  who  was  so  far  removed  from 
the  traditional  ideas  of  the  proper  position  of  the  male 
head  of  a  household.  He  felt,  as  I  have  said,  that  he 
was  not  the  one  to  have  control  over  finances  —  that 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  155 

was  the  wife's  province.  Then  he  had  another  attitude 
which  certainly  did  not  jibe  with  the  Lord-of-the- 
Manor  idea.  Perhaps  there  would  be  something  I 
wanted  to  do,  and  I  would  wait  to  ask  him  about  it 
when  he  got  home.  Invariably  the  same  thing  would 
happen.  He  would  take  my  two  hands  and  put  them 
so  that  I  held  his  coat-lapels.  Then  he  would  place  his 
hands  on  my  shoulders,  beam  all  over,  eyes  twinkling, 
and  say :  — 

"Who's  boss  of  this  household,  anyway?" 

And  I  had  to  answer,  "I  am." 

"Who  gets  her  own  way  one  hundred  per  cent?" 

"I  do." 

"Who  never  gets  his  own  way  and  never  wants  to 
get  his  own  way?" 

"You." 

"Well,  then,  you  know  perfectly  well  you  are  to  do 
anything  in  this  world  you  want  to  do."  With  a 
chuckle  he  would  add,  "Think  of  it  —  not  a  look-in 
in  my  own  home!" 

Seattle,  as  I  look  back  on  it,  meant  the  unexpected 
—  in  every  way.  Our  little  sprees  together  were  not 
the  planned-out  ones  of  former  years.  From  the  day 
Carl  left  Castle  Crags,  his  time  was  never  his  own ;  we 
could  never  count  on  anything  from  one  day  to  the 
next  —  a  strike  here,  an  arbitration  there,  govern- 
ment orders  for  this,  some  investigation  needed  for 
that.  It  was  harassing,  it  was  wearying.  But  always 
every  few  days  there  would  be  that  telephone  ring 
which  I  grew  both  to  dread  and  to  love.  For  as  often 


156  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLI 

as  it  said,  "I've  got  to  go  to  Tacoma,"  it  also  said, 
"You  Girl,  put  on  your  hat  and  coat  this  minute  and 
come  down  town  while  I  have  a  few  minutes  off 
—  we'll  have  supper  together  anyhow." 

And  the  feeling  of  the  courting  days  never  left  us  — 
that  almost  sharp  joy  of  being  together  again  when 
we  just  locked  arms  for  a  block  and  said  almost  noth- 
ing —  nothing  to  repeat.  And  the  good-bye  that 
always  meant  a  wrench,  always,  though  it  might  mean 
being  together  within  a  few  hours.  And  always  the 
waving  from  the  one  on  the  back  of  the  car  to  the 
one  standing  on  the  corner.  Nothing,  nothing,  ever 
got  tame.  After  ten  years,  if  Carl  ever  found  himself 
a  little  early  to  catch  the  train  for  Tacoma,  say, 
though  he  had  said  good-bye  but  a  half  an  hour  before 
and  was  to  be  back  that  evening,  he  would  find  a 
telephone-booth  and  ring  up  to  say,  perhaps,  that  he 
was  glad  he  had  married  me!  Mrs.  Willard  once  said 
that  after  hearing  Carl  or  me  talk  to  the  other  over 
the  telephone,  it  made  other  husbands  and  wives 
when  they  telephoned  sound  as  if  they  must  be  con- 
templating divorce.  But  telephoning  was  an  event: 
it  was  a  little  extra  present  from  Providence,  as  it 
were. 

And  I  think  of  two  times  when  we  met  acciden- 
tally on  the  street  in  Seattle  —  it  seemed  something 
we  could  hardly  believe :  all  the  world  —  the  war, 
commerce,  industry  —  stopped  while  we  tried  to 
realize  what  had  happened. 

Then,  every  night  that  he  had  to  be  out,  —  and  he 
had  to  be  out  night  after  night  in  Seattle,  —  I  would 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  157 

hear  his  footstep  coming  down  the  street;  it  would 
wake  me,  though  he  wore  rubber  heels.  He  would  fix 
the  catch  on  the  front-door  lock,  then  come  upstairs, 
calling  out  softly,  "You  awake?"  He  always  knew  I 
was.  Then,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  he  would 
tell  all  the  happenings  since  I  had  seen  him  last. 
Once  in  a  while  he'd  sigh  and  say,  "A  little  ranch  up 
on  the  Clearwater  would  go  pretty  well  about  now, 
wouldn't  it,  my  girl?"  And  I  would  sigh,  and  say, 
"Oh  dear,  would  n't  it?" 

I  remember  once,  when  we  were  first  married,  he 
got  home  one  afternoon  before  I  did.  When  I  opened 
the  door  to  our  little  Seattle  apartment,  there  he  was, 
walking  the  floor,  looking  as  if  the  bottom  had  dropped 
out  of  the  universe.  "  I  've  had  the  most  awful  twenty 
minutes,"  he  informed  me,  "simply  terrible.  Promise 
me  absolutely  that  never,  never  will  you  let  me  get 
home  before  you  do.  To  expect  to  find  you  home  and 
then  open  the  door  into  empty  rooms  —  oh,  I  never 
lived  through  such  a  twenty  minutes!"  We  had  a 
lark's  whistle  that  we  had  used  since  before  our  en- 
gaged days.  Carl  would  whistle  it  under  my  window 
at  the  Theta  house  in  college,  and  I  would  run  down 
and  out  the  side  door,  to  the  utter  disgust  of  my  well- 
bred  "sisters,"  who  arranged  to  make  cutting  re- 
marks at  the  table  about  it  in  the  hope  that  I  would 
reform  my  "servant-girl  tactics."  That  whistle  was 
whistled  through  those  early  Seattle  days,  through 
Oakland,  through  Cambridge,  Leipzig,  Berlin,  Heidel- 
berg, Munich,  Swanage,  Berkeley,  Alamo  in  the 
country,  Berkeley  again  (he  would  start  it  way  down 


158  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

the  hill  so  I  could  surely  hear),  Castle  Crags,  and 
Seattle.  Wherever  any  of  us  were  in  the  house,  it 
meant  a  dash  for  all  to  the  front  door  —  to  welcome 
the  Dad  home. 

One  evening  I  was  scanning  some  article  on  mar- 
riage by  the  fire  in  Seattle  —  it  was  one  of  those  rare 
times  that  Carl  too  was  at  home  and  going  over  lec- 
tures for  the  next  day.  It  held  that,  to  be  successful, 
marriage  had  to  be  an  adjustment  —  a  giving  in  here 
by  the  man,  there  by  the  woman. 

I  said  to  Carl:  "If  that  is  true,  you  must  have  been 
doing  all  the  adjusting;  I  never  have  had  to  give  up, 
or  fit  in,  or  relinquish  one  little  thing,  so  you  Ve  been 
doing  it  all.*' 

He  thought  for  a  moment,  then  answered:  "You 
know,  I've  heard  that  too,  and  wondered  about  it. 
For  I  know  I've  given  up  nothing,  made  no  'adjust- 
ments.' On  the  contrary,  I  seem  always  to  have 
been  getting  more  than  a  human  being  had  any  right 
to  count  on." 

It  was  that  way,  even  to  the  merest  details,  such 
as  both  liking  identically  the  same  things  to  eat,  sea- 
soned the  identical  way.  We  both  liked  to  do  the  iden- 
tical things,  without  a  single  exception.  Perhaps  one 
exception  —  he  had  a  fondness  in  his  heart  for  fire- 
arms that  I  could  not  share.  (The  gleam  in  his  eyes 
when  he  got  out  his  collection  every  so  often  to  clean 
and  oil  it!)  I  liked  guns,  provided  I  did  not  have  to 
shoot  at  anything  alive  with  them;  but  pistols  I  just 
plain  did  not  like  at  all.  We  rarely  could  pass  one  of 
these  shooting-galleries  without  trying  our  luck  at 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  159 

five  cents  for  so  many  turns  —  at  clay  pigeons  or  rab- 
bits whirling  around  on  whatnots;  but  that  was  as 
wild  as  I  ever  wanted  to  get  with  a  gun. 

We  liked  the  same  friends  without  exception,  the 
same  books,  the  same  pictures,  the  same  music.  He 
wrote  once:  "We  (the  two  of  us)  love  each  other,  like 
to  do  things  together  (absolutely  anything),  don't  need 
or  want  anybody  else,  and  the  world  is  ours."  Mrs. 
Willard  once  told  me  that  if  she  had  read  about  our 
life  together  in  a  book,  she  would  not  have  believed 
it.  She  did  not  know  that  any  one  on  earth  could  live 
like  that.  Perhaps  that  is  one  reason  why  I  want  to 
tell  about  it  —  because  it  was  just  so  plain  wonder- 
ful day  in,  day  out.  I  feel,  too,  that  I  have  a  complete 
record  of  our  life.  For  fourteen  years,  every  day  that 
we  were  not  together  we  wrote  to  each  other,  with  the 
exception  of  two  short  camping-trips  that  Carl  made, 
where  mail  could  be  sent  out  only  by  chance  returning 
campers. 

Somehow  I  find  myself  thinking  here  of  our  wed- 
ding anniversaries,  —  spread  over  half  the  globe,  — 
and  the  joy  we  got  out  of  just  those  ten  occasions. 
The  first  one  was  back  in  Oakland,  after  our  return 
from  Seattle.  We  still  had  elements  of  convention  left 
in  us  then,  — or,  rather,  I  still  had  some;  I  don't  be- 
lieve Carl  had  a  streak  of  it  in  him  ever,  —  so  we 
dressed  in  our  very  best  clothes,  dress-suit  and  all, 
and  had  dinner  at  the  Key  Route  Inn,  where  we  had 
gone  after  the  wedding  a  year  before.  After  dinner  we 
rushed  home,  I  nursed  the  son,  we  changed  into  nat- 
ural clothes,  and  went  to  the  circus.  I  had  misgivings 


i6o  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

about  the  circus  being  a  fitting  wedding-anniversary 
celebration ;  but  what  was  one  to  do  when  the  circus 
comes  to  town  but  one  night  in  the  year? 

The  second  anniversary  was  in  Cambridge.  We  al- 
ways used  to  laugh  each  year  and  say:  "Gracious! 
if  any  one  had  told  us  a  year  ago  we  'd  be  here  this 
September  seventh!"  Every  year  we  were  somewhere 
we  never  dreamed  we  would  be.  That  first  September 
seventh,  the  night  of  the  wedding,  we  were  to  be  in 
Seattle  for  years  —  selling  bonds.  What  a  fearful 
prospect  in  retrospect,  compared  to  what  we  really 
did!  The  second  September,  back  in  Oakland,  we 
thought  we  were  to  be  in  the  bond  business  for  years 
in  Oakland.  More  horrible  thoughts  as  I  look  back 
upon  it.  The  third  September  seventh,  the  second 
anniversary,  lo  and  behold,  was  in  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts! Whoever  would  have  guessed  it,  in  all  the 
world?  It  was  three  days  after  Carl's  return  from 
that  awful  Freiburg  summer  —  we  left  Nandy  with 
a  kind-hearted  neighbor,  and  away  we  spreed  to  Bos- 
ton, to  the  matinee  and  something  good  to  eat. 

Then,  whoever  would  have  imagined  for  a  moment 
that  the  next  year  we  would  be  celebrating  in  Berlin 

—  dinner  at  the  Cafe  Rheingold,  with  wine!  The 
fourth  anniversary  was  at  Heidelberg  —  one  of  the 
red-letter  days,  as  I  look  back  upon  those  magic 
years.  We  left  home  early,  with  our  lunch,  which  we 
ate  on  a  bed  of  dry  leaves  in  a  fairy  birch  forest  back 

—  and  a  good  ways  up  —  in  the  Odenwald.  Then 
we  walked  and  walked  —  almost  twenty-five  miles 
all  told  —  through  little  forest  hamlets,  stopping  now 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  161 

and  then  at  some  small  inn  along  the  roadside  for  a 
cheese  sandwich  or  a  glass  of  beer.  By  nightfall  we 
reached  Neckarsteinach  and  the  railroad,  and  prowled 
around  the  twisted  narrow  streets  till  train- time,  gaz- 
ing often  at  our  beloved  Dilsberg  crowning  the  hilltop 
across  the  river,  her  ancient  castle  tower  and  town 
walls  showing  black  against  the  starlight.  The  happi- 
ness, the  foreign  untouristed  wonder  of  that  day! 

Our  fifth  anniversary  was  another  red-letter  day  — 
one  of  the  days  that  always  made  me  feel,  in  looking 
back  on  it,  that  we  must  have  been  people  in  a  novel, 
an  English  novel;  that  it  could  not  really  have  been 
Carl  and  I  who  walked  that  perfect  Saturday  from 
Swanage  to  Studland.  But  it  was  our  own  two  joyous 
souls  who  explored  that  quaint  English  thatched-roof , 
moss-covered  corner  of  creation;  who  poked  about 
the  wee  old  mouldy  church  and  cemetery;  who  had 
tea  and  muffins  and  jam  out  under  an  old  gnarled 
apple  tree  behind  a  thatched-roof  cottage.  What  a 
wonder  of  a  day  it  was!  And  indeed  it  was  my  Carl 
and  I  who  walked  the  few  miles  home  toward  sunset, 
swinging  hands  along  the  downs,  and  fairly  speechless 
with  the  glory  of  five  years  married  and  England 
and  our  love.  I  should  like  to  be  thinking  of  that  day 
just  before  I  die.  It  was  so  utterly  perfect,  and  so 
ours. 

Our  sixth  anniversary  was  another,  yes,  yet  another 
red-letter  memory  —  one  of  those  times  that  the 
world  seemed  to  have  been  leading  up  to  since  it  first 
cooled  down.  We  left  our  robust  sons  in  the  care  of 
our  beloved  aunt,  Elsie  Turner,  —  this  was  back  in 


i62  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

Berkeley,  —  and  one  Saturday  we  fared  forth,  plus 
sleeping-bags,  frying-pan,  fishing-rod,  and  a  rifle.  We 
rode  to  the  end  of  the  Ocean  Shore  Line  —  but  first 
got  off  the  train  at  Half  Moon  Bay,  bought  half  a 
dozen  eggs  from  a  lonely-looking  female,  made  for  the 
beach,  and  fried  said  eggs  for  supper.  Then  we  got 
back  on  another  train,  and  stepped  off  at  the  end  of 
the  line,  in  utter  darkness.  We  decided  that  some- 
where we  should  find  a  suitable  wooded  nook  where 
we  could  sequester  ourselves  for  the  night.  We  stum- 
bled along  until  we  could  not  see  another  inch  in  front 
of  us  for  the  dark  and  the  thick  fog;  so  made  camp 
—  which  meant  spreading  out  two  bags  —  in  what 
looked  like  as  auspicious  a  spot  as  was  findable.  When 
we  opened  our  eyes  to  the  morning  sunlight,  we  dis- 
covered we  were  on  a  perfectly  barren  open  ploughed 
piece  of  land,  and  had  slept  so  near  the  road  that  if  a 
machine  passing  along  in  the  night  had  skidded  out  a 
bit  to  the  side,  it  would  have  removed  our  feet. 

That  day,  Sunday,  was  our  anniversary,  and  the 
Lord  was  with  us  early  and  late,  though  not  obtru- 
sively. We  got  a  farmer  out  of  bed  to  buy  some  eggs 
for  our  breakfast.  He  wanted  to  know  what  we  were 
doing  out  so  early,  anyhow.  We  told  him,  celebrating 
our  sixth  wedding  anniversary.  Whereat  he  positively 
refused  to  take  a  cent  for  the  eggs  —  wedding  pres- 
ent, he  said.  Around  noon  we  passed  a  hunter,  who 
stopped  to  chat,  and  ended  by  presenting  us  with  a 
cotton-tail  rabbit  to  cook  for  dinner.  And  such  a  din- 
ner! —  by  a  bit  of  a  stream  up  in  the  hills.  That  after- 
noon, late,  we  stumbled  on  a  deserted  farmhouse 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  163 

almost  at  the  summit  —  trees  laden  with  apples  and 
the  ground  red  with  them,  pears  and  a  few  peaches 
for  the  picking,  and  a  spring  of  ice-cold  water  with 
one  lost  fat  trout  in  it  that  I  tried  for  hours  to  catch 
by  fair  means  or  foul;  but  he  merely  waved  his  tail 
slowly,  as  if  to  say,  *'One  wedding  present  you  don't 
get!"  We  slept  that  night  on  some  hay  left  in  an  old 
bam  —  lots  of  mice  and  gnawy  things  about ;  but  I 
could  not  get  nearly  as  angry  at  a  gnawy  mouse  as 
at  a  fat  conceited  trout  who  refused  to  be  caught. 

Next  day  was  a  holiday,  so  we  kept  on  our  way 
rejoicing,  and  slept  that  night  under  great  redwoods, 
beside  a  stream  where  trout  had  better  manners. 
After  a  fish  breakfast  we  potted  a  tin  can  full  of  holes 
with  the  rifle,  and  then  bore  down  circuitously  and 
regretfully  on  Redwood  City  and  the  Southern  Pacific 
Railway,  and  home  and  college  and  dishes  to  wash  and 
socks  to  darn  —  but  uproarious  and  joyful  sons  to 
compensate. 

The  seventh  anniversary  was  less  exciting,  but  that 
could  not  be  helped.  We  were  over  in  Alamo,  with  my 
father,  small  brother,  and  sister  visiting  us  at  the  time 
—  or  rather,  of  course,  the  place  was  theirs  to  begin 
with.  There  was  no  one  to  leave  the  blessed  sons 
with;  also,  Carl  was  working  for  the  Immigration  and 
Housing  Commission,  and  no  holidays.  But  he  man- 
aged to  get  home  a  bit  early ;  we  had  an  early  supper, 
got  the  sons  in  bed,  hitched  up  the  old  horse  to  the 
old  cart,  and  off  we  fared  in  the  moonlight,  married 
seven  years  and  not  sorry.  We  just  poked  about,  end- 
ing at  D^nyiUe  with  Danville  ice-cream  and  Danville 


i64  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

pumpkin  pie;  then  walked  the  horse  all  the  way  back 
to  Alamo  and  home. 

Our  eighth  anniversary,  as  mentioned,  was  in  our 
very  own  home  in  Berkeley,  with  the  curtains  drawn, 
the  telephone  plugged,  and  our  Europe  spread  out 
before  our  eyes. 

The  ninth  anniversary  was  still  too  soon  after  the 
June-Bug's  arrival  for  me  to  get  off  the  hill  and  back, 
up  our  two  hundred  and  seventeen  steps  home,  so 
we  celebrated  under  our  own  roof  again  —  this  time 
with  a  roast  chicken  and  ice-cream  dinner,  and  with 
the  entire  family  participating  —  except  the  June-Bug, 
who  did  almost  nothing  then  but  sleep.  I  tell  you,  if 
ever  we  had  chicken,  the  bones  were  not  worth  sal- 
vaging by  the  time  we  got  through.  We  made  it  last 
at  least  two  meals,  and  a  starving  tom  cat  would  pass 
by  what  was  left  with  a  scornful  sniff. 

Our  tenth  and  last  anniversary  was  in  Seattle. 
Carl  had  to  be  at  Camp  Lewis  all  day,  but  he  got 
back  in  time  to  meet  me  at  six-thirty  in  the  lobby  of 
the  Hotel  Washington.  From  there  we  went  to  our 
own  favorite  place  —  Blanc's  —  for  dinner.  Shut 
away  behind  a  green  lattice  arbor-effect,  we  celebrated 
ten  years  of  joy  and  riches  and  deep  contentment, 
and  as  usual  asked  ourselves,  "What  in  the  world 
shall  we  be  doing  a  year  from  now?  Where  in  the  world 
shall  we  be?"  And  as  usual  we  answered,  "Bring  the 
future  what  it  may,  we  have  ten  years  that  no  power 
in  heaven  or  earth  can  rob  us  of !" 

There  was  another  occasion  in  our  lives  that  I  want 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  165 

to  put  down  in  black  and  white,  though  it  does  not 
come  under  wedding  anniversaries.  But  it  was  such  a 
celebration!  "Uncle  Max"  'lowed  that  before  we  left 
Berkeley  we  must  go  off  on  a  spree  with  him,  and 
suggested  —  imagine!  —  Del  Monte!  The  twelve- 
and-a-half -cent  Parkers  at  Del  Monte!  That  was  one 
spot  we  had  never  seen  ourselves  even  riding  by.  We 
got  our  beloved  Nurse  Balch  out  to  stay  with  the 
young,  and  when  a  brand-new  green  Pierce  Arrow, 
about  the  size  of  our  whole  living-room,  honked 
without,  we  were  ready,  bag  and  baggage,  for  a  spree 
such  as  we  had  never  imagined  ourselves  having  in 
this  world  or  the  next.  We  called  for  the  daughter  of 
the  head  of  the  Philosophy  Department.  Max  had 
said  to  bring  a  friend  along  to  make  four;  so,  four,  we 
whisked  the  dust  of  Berkeley  from  our  wheels  and  — 
presto  —  Del  Monte ! 

Parents  of  three  children,  who  do  most  of  their  own 
work  besides,  do  not  need  to  be  told  in  detail  what 
those  four  days  meant.  Parents  of  three  children 
know  what  the  hours  of,  say,  seven  to  nine  mean,  at 
home;  nor  does  work  stop  at  nine.  It  is  one  mad  whirl 
to  get  the  family  ears  washed  and  teeth  cleaned,  and 
"Chew  your  mush!"  and  "Wipe  your  mouth!"  and 
"Where's  your  speller?"  and  "Jim,  come  back  here 
and  put  on  your  rubbers! "  ("Where  are  my  rubbers?  " 
Ach  Gott!  where?)  Try  six  times  to  get  the  butcher  — 
line  busy.  Breakfast  dishes  to  clear  up;  baby  to  bathe, 
dress,  feed.  Count  the  laundry.  Forget  all  about  the 
butcher  until  fifteen  minutes  before  dinner.  Laundry 
calls.  Telephone  rings  seven  times.  Neighbor  calls  to 


i66  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

borrow  an  egg.  Telephone  the  milkman  for  a  pound 
of  butter.  Make  the  beds,  —  telephone  rings  in  the 
middle,  —  two  beds  do  not  get  made  till  three.  Start 
lunch.  Wash  the  baby's  clothes.  Telephone  rings  three 
times  while  you  are  in  the  basement.  Rice  burns. 
Door-bell  —  gas  and  electric  bill.  Telephone  rings. 
Patch  boys'  overalls.  Water-bill.  Stir  the  pudding. 
Telephone  rings.  Try  to  read  at  least  the  table  of 
contents  of  the  "New  Republic. "  Neighbor  calls  to  re- 
turn some  flour.  Stir  the  pudding  again.  Mad  stamp- 
ing up  the  front  steps.  Sons  home.  Forget  to  scrape 
their  feet.  Forget  to  take  off  their  rubbers.  Dad's 
whistle.  Hurray!  Lunch. —  Let's  stop  about  here, 
and  return  to  Del  Monte. 

This  is  where  music  would  help.  The  Home  motif 
would  be  —  I  do  not  know  those  musical  terms,  but 
a  lot  of  jumpy  notes  up  and  down  the  piano,  fast  and 
never  catching  up.  Del  Monte  motif  slow,  lazy  melody 
—  ending  with  dance-music  for  night-time.  In  plain 
English,  what  Del  Monte  meant  was  a  care-free, 
absolutely  care-free,  jaunt  into  another  world.  It  was 
not  our  world,  —  we  could  have  been  happy  forever 
did  we  never  lay  eyes  on  Del  Monte,  —  and  yet,  oh, 
it  was  such  fun!  Think  of  lazing  in  bed  till  eight  or 
eight-thirty,  then  taking  a  leisurely  bath,  then  dress- 
ing and  deliberately  using  up  time  doing  it  —  put 
one  shoe  on  and  look  at  it  a  spell;  then,  when  you  are 
good  and  ready,  put  on  the  next.  Just  feeling  sort 
of  spunky  about  it  —  just  wanting  to  show  some  one 
that  time  is  nothing  to  you  —  what's  the  hurry? 

Then  —  oh,  what  m^tif  in  music  could  do  a  Del 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  167 

Monte  breakfast  justice?  Just  yesterday  you  were 
gulping  down  a  bite,  in  between  getting  the  family 
fed  and  off.  Here  you  were,  holding  hands  under  the 
table  to  make  sure  you  were  not  dreaming,  while  you 
took  minutes  and  minutes  to  eat  fruit  and  mush  and 
eggs  and  coffee  and  waffles,  and  groaned  to  think 
there  was  still  so  much  on  the  menu  that  would  cost 
you  nothing  to  keep  on  consuming,  but  where,  oh, 
where,  put  it?  After  rocking  a  spell  in  the  sun  on  the 
front  porch,  the  green  Pierce  Arrow  appears,  and  all 
honk  off  for  the  day  —  four  boxes  of  picnic  lunch 
stowed  away  by  a  gracious  waiter;  not  a  piece  of 
bread  for  it  did  you  have  to  spread  yourself.  Basking 
in  the  sun  under  cypress  trees,  talking  over  every  sub- 
ject under  heaven;  back  in  time  for  a  swim,  a  rest 
before  dinner;  then  dinner  (why,  oh,  why  has  the 
human  such  biological  limitations?).  Then  a  concert, 
then  dancing,  then  —  crowning  glory  of  an  unlimited 
bank-account  —  Napa  soda  lemonade  —  and  bed. 
Oh,  what  a  four  days ! 

In  thinking  over  the  intimate  things  of  our  life 
together,  I  have  difficulty  in  deciding  what  the  finest 
features  of  it  were.  There  was  so  much  that  made  it 
rich,  so  much  to  make  me  realize  I  was  blessed  beyond 
anyone  else,  that  I  am  indebted  to  the  world  forever 
for  the  color  that  living  with  Carl  Parker  gave  to 
existence.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  helpful  memories 
to  me  now  is  the  thought  of  his  absolute  faith  in  me. 
From  the  time  we  were  first  in  love,  it  meant  a  new 
zest  in  life  to  know  that  Carl  firmly  believed  there 
was  nothing  I  could  not  do.  For  all  that  I  hold  no 


i68  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

orthodox  belief  in  immortality,  I  could  no  more  get 
away  from  the  idea  that,  if  I  fail  in  anything  now  — 
why  I  carCt  fail  —  think  of  Carl's  faith  in  me!  About 
four  days  before  he  died,  he  looked  up  at  me  once  as 
I  was  arranging  his  pillow  and  said,  so  seriously,  "You 
know,  there  is  n't  a  university  in  the  country  that 
would  n't  give  you  your  Ph.D.  without  your  taking 
an  examination  for  it."  He  was  delirious,  it  is  true; 
but  nevertheless  it  expressed,  though  indeed  in  a  very 
exaggerated  form,  the  way  he  had  of  thinking  I  was 
somebody !  I  knew  there  was  no  one  in  the  world  like 
him,  but  I  had  sound  reasons  for  that.  Oh,  but  it  is 
wonderful  to  live  with  some  one  who  thinks  you  are 
wonderful!  It  does  not  make  you  conceited,  not  a  bit, 
but  it  makes  a  happy  singing  feeling  in  your  heart  to 
feel  that  the  one  you  love  best  in  the  world  is  proud  of 
you.  And  there  is  always  the  incentive  of  vowing  that 
some  day  you  will  justify  it  all. 

The  fun  of  dressing  for  a  party  in  a  hand-me-down 
dress  from  some  relative,  knowing  that  the  one  you 
want  most  to  please  will  honestly  believe,  and  say  on 
the  way  home,  that  you  were  the  best-looking  one  at 
the  party!  The  fun  of  cooking  for  a  man  who  thinks 
every  dish  set  before  him  is  the  best  food  he  ever  ate  — 
and  not  only  say  it,  but  act  that  way.  ("That  was 
just  a  sample.  Give  me  a  real  dish  of  it,  now  that  I 
know  it's  the  best  pudding  I  ever  tasted!") 


CHAPTER  XVI 

As  soon  as  the  I.W.W.  article  was  done,  Carl  had  to 
begin  on  his  paper  to  be  read  before  the  Economic 
Association,  just  after  Christmas,  in  Philadelphia. 
That  was  fun  working  over.  "Come  up  here  and  let 
me  read  you  this!"  And  we'd  go  over  that  much  of 
the  paper  together.  Then  more  reading  to  Miss  Van  , 
Doren,  more  correctings,  finally  finishing  it  just  the 
day  before  he  had  to  leave.  But  that  was  partly  be- 
cause he  had  to  leave  earlier  than  expected.  The 
Government  had  telegraphed  him  to  go  on  to  Wash- 
ington, to  mediate  a  threatened  longshoremen's 
strike.  Carl  worked  harder  over  the  longshoremen 
than  over  any  other  single  labor  difficulty,  not  except- 
ing the  eight-hour  day  in  lumber.  Here  again  I  do  not 
feel  free  to  go  into  details.  The  matter  was  finally, 
at  Carl's  suggestion,  taken  to  Washington. 

The  longshoremen  interested  Carl  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  migratory  and  the  I.W.W.  interested 
him;  in  fact,  there  were  many  I.W.W.  among  them. 
It  was  the  lower  stratum  of  the  labor-world  —  hard 
physical  labor,  irregular  work,  and,  on  the  whole,  un- 
dignified treatment  by  the  men  set  over  them.  And 
they  reacted  as  Carl  expected  men  in  such  a  position 
to  react.  Yet,  on  the  side  of  the  workers,  he  felt  that 
in  this  particular  instance  it  was  a  case  of  men  being 
led  by  stubborn  egotistical  union  delegates  not  really 
representing  the  wishes  of  the  rank  and  file  of  unipn 


170  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

members,  their  main  idea  being  to  compromise  on 
nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  be  it  said  that  he  con- 
sidered the  employers  he  had  to  deal  with  here  the 
fairest,  most  open-minded,  most  anxious  to  compro- 
mise in  the  name  of  justice,  of  all  the  groups  of  em- 
ployers he  ever  had  to  deal  with.  The  whole  affair  was 
nerve-racking,  as  is  best  illustrated  by  the  fact  that, 
while  Carl  was  able  to  hold  the  peace  as  long  as  he 
was  on  the  job,  three  days  after  his  death  the  situa- 
tion "blew  up." 

On  his  way  East  he  stopped  off  in  Spokane,  to  talk 
with  the  lumbermen  east  of  the  mountains.  There,  at 
a  big  meeting,  he  was  able  to  put  over  the  eight-hour 
day.  The  Wilson  Mediation  Commission  was  in  Seattle 
at  the  time.  Felix  Frankfurter  telephoned  out  his 
congratulations  to  me,  and  said:  "We  consider  it 
the  single  greatest  achievement  of  its  kind  since  the 
United  States  entered  the  war."  The  papers  were  full 
of  it  and  excitement  ran  high.  President  Wilson  was 
telegraphed  to  by  the  Labor  Commission,  and  he  in 
turn  telegraphed  back  his  pleasure.  In  addition,  the 
East  Coast  lumbermen  agreed  to  Carl's  scheme  of  an 
employment  manager  for  their  industry,  and  detailed 
him  to  find  a  man  for  the  job  while  in  the  East.  My, 
but  I  was  excited ! 

Not  only  that,  but  they  bade  fair  to  let  him  in- 
augurate a  system  which  would  come  nearer  than 
any  chance  he  could  have  expected  to  try  out  on  a 
big  scale  his  theories  on  the  proper  handling  of  labor. 
The  men  were  to  have  the  sanest  recreation  devisable 
fpr  th^ir  n^eds  and  interests  —  out-of-door  sports, 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  171 

movies,  housing  that  would  permit  of  dignified  family 
life,  recreation  centres,  good  and  proper  food,  altera- 
tion in  the  old  order  of  "hire  and  fire,"  and  general 
control  over  the  men.  Most  employers  argued :  "  Don't 
forget  that  the  type  of  men  we  have  in  the  lumber 
camps  won't  know  how  to  make  use  of  a  single  reform 
you  suggest,  and  probably  won't  give  a  straw  for  the 
whole  thing."  To  which  Carl  would  reply:  "Don't 
forget  that  your  old  conditions  have  drawn  the  type 
of  man  you  have.  This  won't  change  men  over-night 
by  a  long  shot,  but  it  will  at  once  relieve  the  tension 
—  and  see,  in  five  years,  if  your  type  itself  has  not 
undergone  a  change." 

From  Washington,  D.C.,  he  wrote:  "This  city  is 
one  mad  mess  of  men,  desolate,  and  hunting  for  folks 
they  should  see,  overcharged  by  hotels,  and  away 
from  their  wives."  The  red-letter  event  of  Washing- 
ton was  when  he  was  taken  for  tea  to  Justice  Bran- 
deis's.  "We  talked  I.W.W.,  unemployment,  etc.,  and 
he  was  oh,  so  grand!"  A  few  days  later,  two  days 
before  Christmas,  Mrs.  Brandeis  telephoned  and 
asked  him  for  Christmas  dinner!  That  was  a  great 
event  in  the  Parker  annals  —  Justice  Brandeis  hav- 
ing been  a  hero  among  us  for  some  years.  Carl 
wrote:  "He  is  all  he  is  supposed  to  be  and  more." 
He  in  turn  wrote  me  after  Carl's  death:  "Our  country 
shares  with  you  the  great  loss.  Your  husband  was 
among  the  very  few  Americans  who  possessed  the 
character,  knowledge,  and  insight  which  are  indispen- 
sable in  dealing  effectively  with  our  labor-problem. 
Appreciation  of   his  value  was  coming  rapidly,  and 


172  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

events  were  enforcing  his  teachings.  His  journey  to 
the  East  brought  inspiration  to  many;  and  I  seek 
comfort  in  the  thought  that,  among  the  students  at 
the  University,  there  will  be  some  at  least  who  are 
eager  to  carry  forward  his  work." 

There  were  sessions  with  Gompers,  Meyer  Bloom- 
field,  Secretary  Baker,  Secretary  Daniels,  the  Ship- 
ping Board,  and  many  others. 

Then,  at  Philadelphia,  came  the  most  telling  single 
event  of  our  economic  lives  —  Carl's  paper  before 
the  Economic  Association  on  "Motives  in  Economic 
Life."  At  the  risk  of  repeating  to  some  extent  the 
ideas  quoted  from  previous  papers,  I  shall  record  here 
a  few  statements  from  this  one,  as  it  gives  the  last 
views  he  held  on  his  field  of  work. 

"Our  conventional  economics  to-day  analyzes  no 
phase  of  industrialism  or  the  wage-relationship,  or 
citizenship  in  pecuniary  society,  in  a  manner  to  offer 
a  key  to  such  distressing  and  complex  problems  as 
this.  Human  nature  riots  to-day  through  our  economic 
structure,  with  ridicule  and  destruction ;  and  we  econo- 
mists look  on  helpless  and  aghast.  The  menace  of  the 
war  does  not  seem  potent  to  quiet  revolt  or  still  class 
cries.  The  anxiety  and  apprehension  of  the  economist 
should  not  be  produced  by  this  cracking  of  his  eco- 
nomic system,  but  by  the  poverty  of  the  criticism  of 
industrialism  which  his  science  offers.  Why  are 
economists  mute  in  the  presence  of  a  most  obvious 
crisis  in  our  industrial  society?  Why  have  our  criti- 
cisms of  industrialism  no  sturdy  warnings  about  this 
unhappy  evolution?  Why  does  an  agitated  officialdom 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  173 

search  to-day  in  vain  among  our  writings,  for  scien- 
tific advice  touching  labor-inefficiency  or  industrial 
disloyalty,  for  prophecies  and  plans  about  the  rise  in 
our  industrialism  of  economic  classes  unharmonious 
and  hostile? 

"The  fair  answer  seems  this:  We  economists  specu- 
late little  on  human  motives.We  are  not  curious  about 
the  great  basis  of  fact  which  dynamic  and  behavioris- 
tic  psychology  has  gathered  to  illustrate  the  instinct 
stimulus  to  human  activity.  Most  of  us  are  not  inter- 
ested to  think  of  what  a  psychologically  full  or  satis- 
fying life  is.  We  are  not  curious  to  know  that  a  great 
school  of  behavior  analysis  called  the  Freudian  has 
been  built  around  the  analysis  of  the  energy  outbursts 
brought  by  society's  balking  of  the  native  human 
instincts.  Our  economic  literature  shows  that  we  are 
but  rarely  curious  to  know  whether  industrialism  is 
suited  to  man's  inherited  nature,  or  what  man  in 
turn  will  do  to  our  rules  of  economic  conduct  in  case 
these  rules  are  repressive.  The  motives  to  economic 
activity  which  have  done  the  major  service  in  ortho- 
dox economic  texts  and  teachings  have  been  either 
the  vague  middle-class  virtues  of  thrift,  justice,  and 
solvency,  or  the  equally  vague  moral  sentiments  of 
'striving  for  the  welfare  of  others,'  'desire  for  the 
larger  self,'  'desire  to  equip  one's  self  well,'  or,  lastly, 
the  labor-saving  deduction  that  man  is  stimulated  in 
all  things  economic  by  his  desire  to  satisfy  his  wants 
with  the  smallest  possible  effort.  All  this  gentle  parody 
in  motive  theorizing  continued  contemporaneously 
with  the  output  of  the  rich  literature  of  social  and 


174  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

behavioristic  psychology  which  was  almost  entirely 
addressed  to  this  very  problem  of  human  motives  in 
modern  economic  society.  Noteworthy  exceptions  are 
the  remarkable  series  of  books  by  Veblen,  the  articles 
and  criticisms  of  Mitchell  and  Patten,  and  the  most 
significant  small  book  by  Taussig,  entitled  '  Inventors 
and  Money-makers.*  It  is  this  complementary  field 
of  psychology  to  which  the  economists  must  turn,  as 
these  writers  have  turned,  for  a  vitalization  of  their 
basic  hypotheses.  There  awaits  them  a  bewildering 
array  of  studies  of  the  motives,  emotions,  and  folk- 
ways of  our  pecuniary  civilization.  Generalizations 
and  experiment  statistics  abound,  ready-made  for  any 
structure  of  economic  criticism.  The  human  motives 
are  isolated,  described,  compared.  Business  confidence, 
the  release  of  work-energy,  advertising  appeal,  market 
vagaries,  the  basis  of  value  computations,  decay  of 
workmanship,  the  labor  unrest,  decline  in  the  thrift 
habit,  are  the  subjects  treated. 

"All  human  activity  is  untiringly  actuated  by  the 
demand  for  realization  of  the  instinct  wants.  If  an 
artificially  limited  field  of  human  endeavor  be  called 
economic  life,  all  its  so-called  motives  hark  directly 
back  to  the  human  instincts  for  their  origin.  There  are, 
in  truth,  no  economic  motives  as  such.  The  motives  of 
economic  life  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  life  of  art, 
of  vanity  and  ostentation,  of  war  and  crime,  of  sex. 
Economic  life  is  merely  the  life  in  which  instinct 
gratification  is  alleged  to  take  on  a  rational  pecuniary 
habit  form.  Man  is  not  less  a  father,  with  a  father's 
parental  instinct,  just  because  he  passes  down  the 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  175 

street  from  his  home  to  his  office.  His  business  raid 
into  his  rival's  market  has  the  same  naive  charm 
that  tickled  the  heart  of  his  remote  ancestor  when  in 
the  night  he  rushed  the  herds  of  a  near-by  clan.  A 
manufacturer  tries  to  tell  a  conventional  world  that 
he  resists  the  closed  shop  because  it  is  un-American, 
it  loses  him  money,  or  it  is  inefficient.  A  few  years 
ago  he  was  more  honest,  when  he  said  he  would  run 
his  business  as  he  wished  and  would  allow  no  man 
to  tell  him  what  to  do.  His  instinct  of  leadership,  re- 
inforced powerfully  by  his  innate  instinctive  revul- 
sion to  the  confinement  of  the  closed  shop,  gave  the 
true  stimulus.  His  opposition  is  psychological,  not 
ethical." 

He  then  goes  on  to  catalogue  and  explain  the  fol- 
lowing instincts  which  he  considered  of  basic  impor- 
tance in  any  study  of  economics:  (i)  gregariousness; 

(2)  parental   bent,    motherly   behavior,    kindliness; 

(3)  curiosity,  manipulation,  workmanship;  (4)  acqui- 
sition, collecting,  ownership;  (5)  fear  and  flight; 
(6)  mental  activity,  thought;  (7)  the  housing  or  set- 
tling instinct;  (8)  migration,  homing;  (9)  hunting 
("Historic  revivals  of  hunting  urge  make  an  interest- 
ing recital  of  religious  inquisitions,  witch-burnings, 
college  hazings,  persecution  of  suffragettes,  of  the 
I.W.W.,  of  the  Japanese,  or  of  pacifists.  All  this  goes 
on  often  under  naive  rationalization  about  justice  and 
patriotism,  but  it  is  pure  and  innate  lust  to  run  some- 
thing down  and  hurt  it");  (10)  anger,  pugnacity; 
(11)  revolt  at  confinement,  at  being  limited  in  liberty 
of  action  and  choice;  (12)  revulsion;  (13)  leadership 


176  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

and  mastery;  (14)  subordination,  submission;  (15)  dis- 
play, vanity,  ostentation;  (16)  sex. 

After  quoting  from  Professor  Cannon,  and  discuss- 
ing the  contributions  that  his  studies  have  made  to 
the  subject  of  man's  reaction  to  his  immediate  envi- 
ronment, he  continues:  — 

"The  conclusion  seems  both  scientific  and  logical, 
that  behavior  in  anger,  fear,  pain,  and  hunger  is  a 
basically  different  behavior  from  behavior  under  re- 
pose and  economic  security.  The  emotions  generated 
under  the  conditions  of  existence-peril  seem  to  make 
the  emotions  and  motives  generative  in  quiet  and 
peace  pale  and  unequal.  It  seems  impossible  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  the  most  vital  part  of  man's 
inheritance  is  one  which  destines  him  to  continue  for 
some  myriads  of  years  ever  a  fighting  animal  when 
certain  conditions  exist  in  his  environment.  Though, 
through  education,  man  be  habituated  in  social  and 
intelligent  behavior  or,  through  license,  in  sexual  de- 
bauchery, still,  at  those  times  when  his  life  or  liberty 
is  threatened,  his  instinct-emotional  nature  will  in- 
hibit either  social  thought  or  sex  ideas,  and  present 
him  as  merely  an  irrational  fighting  animal.  .  .  . 

"The  instincts  and  their  emotions,  coupled  with 
the  obedient  body,  lay  down  in  scientific  and  exact 
description  the  motives  which  must  and  will  deter- 
mine human  conduct.  If  a  physical  environment  set 
itself  against  the  expression  of  these  instinct  motives, 
the  human  organism  is  fully  and  efficiently  prepared 
for  a  tenacious  and  destructive  revolt  against  this 
environment;  and  if  the  antagonism  persist,  the  organ- 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  177 

ism  is  ready  to  destroy  itself  and  disappear  as  a  species 
if  it  fail  of  a  psychical  mutation  which  would  make 
the  perverted  order  endurable." 

And  in  conclusion,  he  states:  — 

"The  dynamic  psychology  of  to-day  describes  the 
present  civilization  as  a  repressive  environment.  For 
a  great  number  of  its  inhabitants  a  sufficient  self- 
expression  is  denied.  There  is,  for  those  who  care  to 
see,  a  deep  and  growing  unrest  and  pessimism.  With 
the  increase  in  knowledge  is  coming  a  new  realization 
of  the  irrational  direction  of  economic  evolution.  The 
economists,  however,  view  economic  inequality  and 
life-degradation  as  objects  in  truth  outside  the  science. 
Our  value-concept  is  a  price-mechanism  hiding  be- 
hind a  phrase.  If  we  are  to  play  a  part  in  the  social 
readjustment  immediately  ahead,  we  must  put  human 
nature  and  human  motives  into  our  basic  hypotheses. 
Our  value-concept  must  be  the  yardstick  to  measure 
just  how  fully  things  and  institutions  contribute  to  a 
full  psychological  life.  We  must  know  more  of  the 
meaning  of  progress.  The  domination  of  society  by  one 
economic  class  has  for  its  chief  evil  the  thwarting  of 
the  instinct  life  of  the  subordinate  class  and  the  per- 
version of  the  upper  class.  The  extent  and  character- 
istics of  this  evil  are  to  be  estimated  only  when  we 
know  the  innate  potentialities  and  inherited  propensi- 
ties of  man;  and  the  ordering  of  this  knowledge  and 
its  application  to  the  changeable  economic  structure 
is  the  task  before  the  trained  economist  to-day." 

A  little  later  I  saw  one  of  the  big  men  who  was  at 
that  Economic  Association  meeting,  and  he  said:  "I 


178  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

don't  see  why  Parker  is  n't  spoiled.  He  was  the  most 
talked-about  man  at  the  Convention."  Six  pubHshing 
houses  wrote,  after  that  paper,  to  see  if  he  could  en- 
large it  into  a  book.  Somehow  it  did  seem  as  if  now 
more  than  ever  the  world  was  ours.  We  looked  ahead 
into  the  future,  and  wondered  if  it  could  seem  as  good 
to  any  one  as  it  did  to  us.  It  was  almost  too  good  — 
we  were  dazed  a  bit  by  it.  It  is  one  of  the  things  I  just 
cannot  let  myself  ever  think  of  —  that  future  and  the 
plans  we  had.  Anything  I  can  ever  do  now  would  still 
leave  life  so  utterly  dull  by  comparison. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

One  of  the  days  in  Seattle  that  I  think  of  most  was 
about  a  month  before  the  end.  The  father  of  a  great 
friend  of  ours  died,  and  Carl  and  I  went  to  the  funeral 
one  Sunday  afternoon.  We  got  in  late,  so  stood  in  a 
corner  by  the  door,  and  held  hands,  and  seemed  to  own 
each  other  especially  hard  that  day.  Afterwards  we 
prowled  around  the  streets,  talking  of  funerals  and 
old  age. 

Most  of  the  people  there  that  afternoon  were  gray- 
haired  —  the  family  had  lived  in  Seattle  for  years 
and  years,  and  these  were  the  friends  of  years  and 
years  back.  Carl  said:  "That  is  something  we  can't 
have  when  you  and  I  die  —  the  old,  old  friends  who 
have  stood  by  us  year  in  and  year  out.  It  is  one 
of  the  phases  of  life  you  sacrifice  when  you  move 
around  at  the  rate  we  do.  But  in  the  first  place,  neither 
of  us  wants  a  funeral,  and  in  the  second  place,  we  feel 
that  moving  gives  more  than  it  takes  away  —  so  we 
are  satisfied." 

Then  we  talked  about  our  own  old  age  —  planned 
it  in  detail.  Carl  declared:  "  I  want  you  to  promise  me 
faithfully  you  will  make  me  stop  teaching  when  I  am 
sixty.  I  have  seen  too  much  of  the  tragedy  of  men 
hanging  on  and  on  and  students  and  education  being 
sacrificed  because  the  teacher  has  lost  his  fire  —  has 
fallen  behind  in  the  parade.  I  feel  now  as  if  I  'd  never 
grow  old  —  that  does  n't  mean  that  I  won't.  So,  no 


i8o  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

matter  how  strong  I  may  be  going  at  sixty,  make  me 
stop  —  promise." 

Then  we  discussed  our  plans:  by  that  time  the 
children  would  be  looking  out  for  themselves,  —  very 
much  so,  —  and  we  could  plan  as  we  pleased.  It  was 
to  be  England  —  some  suburb  outside  of  London, 
where  we  could  get  into  big  things,  and  yet  where 
we  could  be  peaceful  and  by  ourselves,  and  read  and 
write,  and  have  the  young  economists  who  were 
traveling  about,  out  to  spend  week-ends  with  us;  and 
then  we  could  keep  our  grandchildren  while  their  par- 
ents were  traveling  in  Europe!  About  a  month  from 
that  day,  he  was  dead. 

There  is  a  path  I  must  take  daily  to  my  work  at 
college,  which  passes  through  the  University  Botan- 
ical Garden.  Every  day  I  must  brace  myself  for  it, 
for  there,  growing  along  the  path,  is  a  clump  of  old- 
fashioned  morning  glories.  Always,  from  the  time  we 
first  came  back  to  teach  in  Berkeley  and  passed  along 
that  same  path  to  the  University,  we  planned  to  have 
morning  glories  like  those  —  the  odor  came  to  meet 
you  yards  away  —  growing  along  the  path  to  the 
little  home  we  would  at  last  settle  down  in  when  we 
were  old.  We  used  always  to  remark  pictures  in  the 
newspapers,  of  So-and-so  on  their  "golden  anniver- 
sary," and  would  plan  about  our  own  "golden  wed- 
ding-day" —  old  age  together  always  seemed  so  good 
to  think  about.  There  was  a  time  when  we  used  to 
plan  to  live  in  a  lighthouse,  way  out  on  some  point, 
when  we  got  old.  It  made  a  §trQng  appeal,  it  really 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  181 

did.  We  planned  many  ways  of  growing  old  —  not 
that  we  talked  of  it  often,  perhaps  twice  a  year,  but 
always,  always  it  was,  of  course,  together.  Strange, 
that  neither  of  us  ever  dreamed  one  would  grow  old 
without  the  other. 

And  yet,  too,  there  is  the  other  side.  I  found  a  let- 
ter written  during  our  first  summer  back  in  Berkeley, 
just  after  we  had  said  good-bye  at  the  station  when 
Carl  left  for  Chicago.  Among  other  things  he  wrote: 
"  It  just  makes  me  feel  bad  to  see  other  folks  living 
put-in  lives,  when  we  two  (four)  have  loved  through 
Harvard  and  Europe  and  it  has  only  commenced,  and 
no  one  is  loving  so  hard  or  living  so  happily.  ...  I  am 
most  willing  to  die  now  (if  you  die  with  me),  for  we 
have  lived  one  complete  life  of  joy  already."  And 
then  he  added  —  if  only  the  adding  of  it  could  have 
made  it  come  true:  "But  we  have  fifty  years  yet  of 
love." 

Oh,  it  was  so  true  that  we  packed  into  ten  years 
the  happiness  that  could  normally  be  considered  to 
last  a  lifetime  —  a  long  lifetime.  Sometimes  it  seems 
almost  as  if  we  must  have  guessed  it  was  to  end  so 
soon,  and  lived  so  as  to  crowd  in  all  the  joy  we  could 
whil^  our  time  together  was  given  us.  I  say  so  often 
that  I  stand  right  now  the  richest  woman  in  the  world 
—  why  talk  of  sympathy?  I  have  our  three  precious, 
marvelously  healthy  children,  I  have  perfect  health 
myself,  I  have  all  and  more  than  I  can  handle  of  big 
ambitious  maturing  plans,  with  a  chance  to  see  them 
carried  out,  I  have  enough  to  live  on,  and,  greatest  of 
all,  fifteen  years  of  perfect  memories  —  And  yet,  to 


i82  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

hear  a  snatch  of  a  tune  and  know  that  the  last  time 
you  heard  it  you  were  together  —  perhaps  it  was  the 
very  music  they  played  as  you  left  the  theatre  arm- 
in-arm  that  last  night;  to  put  on  a  dress  you  have  not 
worn  for  some  time  and  remember  that,  when  you 
last  had  it  on,  it  was  the  night  you  went,  just  the  two 
of  you,  to  Blanc's  for  dinner;  to  meet  unexpectedly 
some  friend,  and  recall  that  the  last  time  you  saw 
him  it  was  that  night  you  two,  strolling  with  hands 
clasped,  met  him  on  Second  Avenue  accidentally, 
and  chatted  on  the  corner;  to  come  across  a  necktie 
in  a  trunk,  to  read  a  book  he  had  marked,  to  see  his 
handwriting  —  perhaps  just  the  address  on  an  old 
baggage-check  —  Oh,  one  can  sound  so  much  braver 
than  one  feels!  And  then,  because  you  have  tried  so 
hard  to  live  up  to  the  pride  and  faith  he  had  in  you, 
to  be  told:  "You  know  I  am  surprised  that  you 
have  n't  taken  Carl's  death  harder.  You  seem  to  be 
just  the  same  exactly." 

What  is  seeming?  Time  and  time  again,  these 
months,  I  have  thought,  what  do  any  of  us  know 
about  what  another  person  feels?  A  smile  —  a  laugh 
—  I  used  to  think  of  course  they  stood  for  happiness. 
There  can  be  many  smiles,  much  laughter,  and  it 
means  —  nothing.  But  surely  anything  is  kinder  for 
a  friend  to  see  than  tears! 

When  Carl  returned  from  the  East  in  January,  he 
was  more  rushed  than  ever  —  his  time  more  filled 
than  ever  with  strike  mediations,  street-car  arbitra- 
tions, cost  of  living  surveys  for  the  Government,  con- 
ferences on  lumber  production.  In  all,  he  had  mediated 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  183 

thirty-two  strikes,  sat  on  two  arbitration  boards, 
made  three  cost-of-living  surveys  for  the  Government. 
(Mediations  did  gall  him  —  he  grew  intellectually 
impatient  over  this  eternal  patching  up  of  what  he 
was  wont  to  call  "a  rotten  system."  Of  course  he  saw 
the  war-emergency  need  of  it  just  then,  but  what  he 
wanted  to  work  on  was,  why  were  mediations  ever  nec- 
essary? what  social  and  economic  order  would  best 
ensure  absence  of  friction?) 

On  the  campus  work  piled  up.  He  had  promised  to 
give  a  course  on  Employment  Management,  espe- 
cially to  train  men  to  go  into  the  lumber  industries 
with  a  new  vision.  (Each  big  company  east  of  the 
mountains  was  to  send  a  representative.)  It  was  also 
open  to  seniors  in  college,  and  a  splendid  group  it  was, 
almost  every  one  pledged  to  take  up  employment 
management  as  their  vocation  on  graduation  —  no 
fear  that  they  would  take  it  up  with  a  capitalist  bias. 
Then  —  his  friends  and  I  had  to  laugh,  it  was  so  like 
him  —  the  afternoon  of  the  morning  he  arrived,  he 
was  in  the  thick  of  a  scrap  on  the  campus  over  a 
principle  he  held  to  tenaciously  —  the  abolition  of 
the  one-year  modern-language  requirement  for  stu- 
dents in  his  college.  To  use  his  own  expression,  he 
"went  to  the  bat  on  it,"  and  at  a  faculty  meeting  that 
afternoon  it  carried.  He  had  been  working  his  little 
campaign  for  a  couple  of  months,  but  in  his  absence 
in  the  East  the  other  side  had  been  busy.  He  returned 
just  in  time  for  the  fray.  Every  one  knows  what  a 
farce  one  year  of  a  modern  language  is  at  college;  even 
several  of  the  language  teachers  themselves  were 


i84  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

frank  enough  to  admit  it.  But  it  was  an  academic 
tradition !  I  think  the  two  words  that  upset  Carl  most 
were  "efficiency"  and  "tradition"  —  both  being  used 
too  often  as  an  excuse  for  practices  that  did  more 
harm  than  good. 

And  then  came  one  Tuesday,  the  fifth  of  March. 
He  had  his  hands  full  all  morning  with  the  continued 
threatened  upheavals  of  the  longshoremen.  About 
noon  the  telephone  rang  —  threatened  strike  in  all 
the  flour-mills;  Dr.  Parker  must  come  at  once.  (I  am 
reminded  of  a  description  which  was  published  of 
Carl  as  a  mediator.  "He  thought  of  himself  as  a 
physician  and  of  an  industry  on  strike  as  the  patient. 
And  he  did  not  merely  ease  the  patient's  pain  with 
opiates.  He  used  the  knife  and  tried  for  permanent 
cures.")  I  finally  reached  him  by  telephone;  his  voice 
sounded  tired,  for  he  had  had  a  very  hard  morning. 
By  one  o'clock  he  was  working  on  the  flour-mill  situ- 
ation. He  could  not  get  home  for  dinner.  About  mid- 
night he  appeared,  having  sat  almost  twelve  hours 
steadily  on  the  new  flour-difficulty.  He  was  "all  in," 
he  said. 

The  next  morning,  one  of  the  rare  instances  in  our 
years  together,  he  claimed  that  he  did  not  feel  like 
getting  up.  But  there  were  four  important  confer- 
ences that  day  to  attend  to,  besides  his  work  at  col- 
lege. He  dressed,  ate  breakfast,  then  said  he  felt  fever- 
ish. His  temperature  was  102.  I  made  him  get  back 
into  bed  —  let  all  the  conferences  on  earth  explode. 
Th^  next  day  his  temperature  was  105.  "This  has 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  185 

taught  us  our  lesson  —  no  more  living  at  this  pace.  I 
don't  need  two  reminders  that  I  ought  to  call  a  halt." 
Thursday,  Friday,  and  Saturday  he  lay  there,  too 
weary  to  talk,  not  able  to  sleep  at  all  nights ;  the  doc- 
tor coming  regularly,  but  unable  to  tell  just  what 
the  trouble  was,  other  than  a  "breakdown." 

Saturday  afternoon  he  felt  a  little  better;  we 
planned  then  what  we  would  do  when  he  got  well. 
The  doctor  had  said  that  he  should  allow  himself  at 
least  a  month  before  going  back  to  college.  One  month 
given  to  us!  "Just  think  of  the  writing  I  can  get  done, 
being  around  home  with  my  family!"  There  was  an 
article  for  Taussig  half  done  to  appear  in  the  "Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Economics,"  a  more  technical  analy- 
sis of  the  I.W.W.  than  had  appeared  in  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly";  he  had  just  begun  a  review  for  the 
"American  Journal  of  Economics"  of  Hoxie's  "Trade- 
Unionism."  Then  he  was  full  of  ideas  for  a  second 
article  he  had  promised  the  "Atlantic"  —  "Is  the 
United  States  a  Nation?"  —  "And  think  of  being 
able  to  see  all  I  want  of  the  June-Bug!" 

Since  he  had  not  slept  for  three  nights,  the  doctor 
left  powders  which  I  was  to  give  him  for  Saturday 
night.  Still  he  could  not  sleep.  He  thought  that,  if  I 
read  aloud  to  him  in  a  monotonous  tone  of  voice,  he 
could  perhaps  drop  off.  I  got  a  high-school  copy  of 
"From  Milton  to  Tennyson,"  and  read  every  sing- 
songy  poem  I  could  find  —  "The  Ancient  Mariner" 
twice,  hardly  pronouncing  the  words  as  I  droned 
along.  Then  he  began  to  get  delirious. 

It  is  a  very   terrifying   experience  —  to  see  for 


i86  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

the  first  time  a  person  in  a  delirium,  and  that  person 
the  one  you  love  most  on  earth.  All  night  long  I  sat 
there  trying  to  quiet  him  —  it  was  always  some  medi- 
ation, some  committee  of  employers  he  was  attend- 
ing. He  would  say:  "  I  am  so  tired  —  can't  you  people 
come  to  some  agreement,  so  that  I  can  go  home 
and  sleep?" 

At  first  I  would  say:  "Dearest,  you  must  be  quiet 
and  try  to  go  to  sleep."  —  "But  I  can't  leave  the 
meeting!"  He  would  look  at  me  in  such  distress. 
So  I  learned  my  part,  and  at  each  new  discussion 
he  would  get  into,  I  would  suggest:  "Here's  Will 
Ogburn  just  come  —  he'll  take  charge  of  the  meeting 
for  you.  You  come  home  with  me  and  go  to  sleep." 
So  he  would  introduce  Will  to  the  gathering,  and  add : 
"Gentlemen,  my  wife  wants  me  to  go  home  with  her 
and  go  to  sleep  —  good-bye."  For  a  few  moments  he 
would  be  quiet.  Then,  "O  my  Lord,  something  to 
investigate!  What  is  it  this  time?"  I  would  cut  in 
hastily:  "The  Government  feels  next  week  will  be 
plenty  of  time  for  this  investigation."  He  would  look 
at  me  seriously.  "  Did  you  ever  know  the  Government 
to  give  you  a  week's  time  to  begin?"  Then,  "Tele- 
grams—  more  telegrams!  Nobody  keeps  their  word, 
nobody." 

About  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  could  wait  no 
longer  and  called  the  doctor.  He  pronounced  it  pneu- 
monia—  an  absolutely  different  case  from  any  he 
had  ever  seen :  no  sign  of  it  the  day  before,  though  it 
was  what  he  had  been  watching  for  all  along.  Every 
hospital  in  town  was  full.  A  splendid  trained  nurse 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  187 

came  at  once  to  the  house  —  "the  best  nurse  in  the 
whole  city,"  the  doctor  announced  with  reHef. 

Wednesday  afternoon  the  crisis  seemed  to  have 
passed.  That  whole  evening  he  was  himself,  and  I  — 
I  was  almost  delirious  from  sheer  joy.  To  hear  his 
dear  voice  again  just  talking  naturally!  He  noticed 
the  nurse  for  the  first  time.  He  was  jovial  —  happy. 
"I  am  going  to  get  some  fun  out  of  this  now!"  he 
smiled.  "And  oh,  won't  we  have  a  time,  my  girl, 
while  I  am  convalescing!"  And  we  planned  the  rosiest 
weeks  any  one  ever  planned.  Thursday  the  nurse 
shaved  him  —  he  not  only  joked  and  talked  like  his 
dear  old  self  —  he  looked  it  as  well.  (All  along  he  had 
been  cheerful  —  always  told  the  doctor  he  was  "feel- 
ing fine";  never  complained  of  anything.  It  amused 
the  doctor  so  one  morning,  when  he  was  leaning  over 
listening  to  Carl's  heart  and  lungs,  as  he  lay  in  more 
or  less  of  a  doze  and  partial  delirium.  A  twinkle  sud- 
denly came  into  Carl's  eye.  "You  sprung  a  new  neck- 
tie on  me  this  morning,  did  n't  you?"  Sure  enough, 
it  was  new.) 

Thursday  morning  the  nurse  was  preparing  things 
for  his  bath  in  another  room  and  I  was  with  Carl. 
The  sun  was  streaming  in  through  the  windows  and 
my  heart  was  too  contented  for  words.  He  said:  " Do 
you  know  what  I've  been  thinking  of  so  much  this 
morning?  I  've  been  thinking  of  what  it  must  be  to  go 
through  a  terrible  illness  and  not  have  some  one  you 
loved  desperately  around.  I  say  to  myself  all  the 
while:  'Just  think,  my  girl  was  here  all  the  time  — 
my  girl  will  be  here  all  the  time!*  I've  lain  here  this 


i88  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

morning  and  wondered  more  than  ever  what  good 
angel  was  hovering  over  me  the  day  I  met  you." 

I  put  this  in  because  it  is  practically  the  last  thing 
he  said  before  delirium  came  on  again,  and  I  love  to 
think  of  it.  He  said  really  more  than  that. 

In  the  morning  he  would  start  calling  for  me  early 
—  the  nurse  would  try  to  soothe  him  for  a  while,  then 
would  call  me.  I  wanted  to  be  in  his  room  at  night, 
but  they  would  not  let  me  —  there  was  an  unborn 
life  to  be  thought  of  those  days,  too.  As  soon  as  I 
reached  his  bed,  he  would  clasp  my  hand  and  hold  it 
oh,  so  tight.  "I've  been  groping  for  you  all  night  — 
all  night!  Why  don't  they  let  me  find  you?"  Then,  in 
a  moment,  he  would  not  know  I  was  there.  Daytimes 
I  had  not  left  him  five  minutes,  except  for  my  meals. 
Several  nights  they  had  finally  let  me  be  by  him,  any- 
way. Saturday  morning  for  the  first  time  since  the 
crisis  the  doctor  was  encouraged.  "Things  are  really 
looking  up,"  and  "You  go  out  for  a  few  moments  in 
the  sun!" 

I  walked  a  few  blocks  to  the  Mudgetts'  in  our  de- 
partment, to  tell  them  the  good  news,  and  then  back; 
but  my  heart  sank  to  its  depths  again  as  soon  as  I 
entered  Carl's  room.  The  delirium  always  affected  me 
that  way:  to  see  the  vacant  stare  in  his  eyes  —  no 
look  of  recognition  when  I  entered. 

The  nurse  went  out  that  afternoon.  "He's  doing 
nicely,"  was  the  last  thing  she  said.  She  had  not  been 
gone  half  an  hour  —  it  was  just  two- fifteen  —  and  I 
was  lying  on  her  bed  watching  Carl,  when  he  called, 
"Buddie,  I'm  going  —  come  hold  my  hand."  O  my 


AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL  189 

God  —  I  dashed  for  him,  I  clung  to  him,  I  told  him 
he  could  not,  must  not  go  —  we  needed  him  too  ter- 
ribly, we  loved  him  too  much  to  spare  him.  I  felt  so 
sure  of  it,  that  I  said:  "Why,  my  love  is  enough  to 
keep  you  here!" 

He  would  not  let  me  leave  him  to  call  the  doctor. 
I  just  knelt  there  holding  both  his  hands  with  all  my 
might,  talking,  talking,  telling  him  we  were  not  going 
to  let  him  go.  And  then,  at  last,  the  color  came  back 
into  his  face,  he  nodded  his  head  a  bit,  and  said,  " I'll 
stay,"  very  quietly.  Then  I  was  able  to  rush  for  the 
stairs  and  tell  Mrs.  Willard  to  telephone  for  the  doc- 
tor. Three  doctors  we  had  that  afternoon.  They  re- 
ported the  case  as  "dangerous,  but  not  absolutely 
hopeless."  His  heart,  which  had  been  so  wonderful  all 
along,  had  given  out.  That  very  morning  the  doctor 
had  said :  "  I  wish  my  pulse  was  as  strong  as  that ! "  and 
there  he  lay  —  no  pulse  at  all.  They  did  everything: 
our  own  doctor  stayed  till  about  ten,  then  left,  with 
Carl  resting  fairly  easily.  He  lived  only  a  block  away. 

About  one-thirty  the  nurse  had  me  call  the  doctor 
again.  I  could  see  things  were  going  wrong.  Once 
Carl  started  to  talk  rather  loud.  I  tried  to  quiet  him 
and  he  said :  "Twice  I  've  pulled  and  fought  and  strug- 
gled to  live  just  for  you  [one  of  the  times  had  been 
during  the  crisis].  Let  me  just  talk  if  I  want  to.  I 
can't  make  the  fight  a  third  time  —  I'm  so  tired." 

Before  the  doctor  could  get  there,  he  was  dead. 

With  our  beliefs  what  they  were,  there  was  only  one 
thing  to  be  done.  We  had  never  discussed  it  in  detail, 


190  AN  AMERICAN  IDYLL 

but  I  felt  absolutely  sure  I  was  doing  as  he  would 
have  me  do.  His  body  was  cremated,  without  any 
service  whatsoever  —  nobody  present  but  one  of  his 
brothers  and  a  great  friend.  The  next  day  the  two 
men  scattered  his  ashes  out  on  the  waters  of  Puget 
Sound.    I  feel  it  was  as  he  would  have  had  it. 

"Out  of  your  welded  lives  —  welded  in  spirit  and 
in  the  comradeship  that  you  had  in  his  splendid  work 
—  you  know  everything  that  I  could  say. 

"I  grieve  for  you  deeply  —  and  I  rejoice  for  any 
woman  who,  for  even  a  few  short  years,  is  given  the 
great  gift  in  such  a  form." 


THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSBTT8 
U   .  S   .  A 


111 

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